Tasty, and easy to make!

Peruvians love Chinese food, and they love it so much that some young generation Peruvians do not even consider this to be a dish born from Asian culture; for them is simply Peruvian Cuisine.

Let’s get straight to the point of the recipe on how to make this delicious dish! but do not forget, I am a Chef and I want to teach you Why it works? and all the jumble in my head makes sense! So, please!!!! read the afterwords so that when you make this recipe, you can also learn some other cooking basics; can’t promise it! but I will try to be short and stray to the point.

Tallarin Saltado Estilo Chifa

Ingredients:

• Sauce:1/4 cup Aji Colorado (read on how to substitute aji colorado)
  • 1 heaping tbsp. Hoisin Sauce
  • 1 heaping tbsp. Lee Kum Kee Black bean garlic paste
  • 1 tbsp. Soy Sauce
  • 1/4 cup Pasta cooking liquid
  • 2 tbsp. Ginger extract
• Standard size wok, or a large, very ample, sauté pan
• Canola oil, as needed
• 1 large Onion, medium sliced
• 1 medium Red bell pepper
• 1 medium Green bell pepper
• 2 cups Napa cabbage, medium sliced
• 1 cup Purple cabbage, medium sliced
• 1 lb. Chicken or Flank Steak, sliced or cut (just make sure the size of the pieces are all the same and all big enough to eat in one bite) white flesh or dark, it will work
• 8 oz. Al-Dente Cooked Spaghettis, choose from a bronze cut style pasta
• Cilantro, roughly chopped

Directions:

1. Combine sauce ingredients and set aside.
2. Preheat the wok, over medium heat, when the wok is slightly starting to be smoky, add the oil from the top rim of the wok in a quick circular motion.
3. Starting here everything happens very quickly in a wok
   1. Increase the heat and scatter the onions in the wok, sprinkle with salt. Don’t stir fry until the onions look a little sweaty. “If the work was well preheated this will happen in less than 1-minute”
   2. After a couple of stir-frying motions, scatter the peppers; followed by a sprinkle of salt. One more time, don’t stir fry the wok, allow the wok to cook for you.
   3. Look again into your vegetables, once the peppers start sweating, continue with a few more stir-frying motions. Quickly add the cabbage and repeat the process, sprinkle salt, don’t stir-fry, and stir-fry as soon as you observe sweating on the cabbage.
4. Add 2 tbsp. of the sauce to the wok. Stir fry for 1 minute or two. Set vegetables aside.
5. Re-heat the wok. drizzle oil into the wok. Add the meat (chicken or beef as desired), making sure that the meat lays in a single layer and that it does not overcrowd the wok. “if we overcrowd the wok, the meat will sweat and will NOT sear, we are looking forward to beautiful color and this will only happen if we do not overwhelm the wok-pan)
6. Once the meat is cooked through on one side, carefully flip pieces of meat, or liberally use the stir-fry motion to flip the meat and complete the cooking process of the meat.
7. Add the sauce to the wok. Stir. When the sauce is bubbly. Add the pasta. Combine thoroughly, with stir-frying motions or with the help of a tong. Re-season with salt, and freshly ground pepper. Add the cilantro.
8. Serve immediately. Enjoy cooking! learn from the process and read the chef’s notes!

Chef Notes for The Pro-Chef Kitchen

• Mise & Place:
  • It means everything is in place, it means that before we start cooking we should gather and measure all the ingredients.
  • In my home is about bringing the ingredients for a specific recipe into a sheet pan, and cooking and measuring as I start cooking. Though when I bake I make sure to measure all before the process starts, as it is more finicky at times.
  • Any dish that is labeled as “Stir-Fried” or that belongs to the same idea as a stir-fried, will require you to have everything ready, that is premeasured, and chopped as needed before you start cooking; because once you start the stir-frying process the temperature that we use when cooking are super high and things can burn pretty quick.
• Why cooking over high heat, when stir-frying is important?:
  • When we are stir-frying, we are looking for vegetables to cook quick and with a nice pan-roasted and bright color, without getting mushy, overcooked, and with a sad color. If our temperature is low, the water that is in the vegetables and proteins will cause everything to sweat and will cook things in some sort of steaming way. The texture of the stir-frying will be compromised.
• Side dishes for stir-fry:
  • Whatever you decide to serve your dish with, make sure is ready before stir-fry is ready.