Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord as he shares a lip-smacking recipe for mushroom stir-fry he recreated from one he enjoyed in China. ~Elise

During a recent trip through China I ate a lot of life changing food. Sichuan stir-fried duck tongues, homemade noodles in beef sauce, spicy lotus root with ginger, Sandouping-style boiled peanuts, curried yak with butter, deep fried river shrimp with garlic… Oh! The list goes on! You can believe that I was taking plenty of notes so that I could recreate these dishes back in the States.

While in Beijing and Xi’an I noticed that much of the food there was sweeter than the rest of China. One particular dish we had quite a few times was a simple mushroom stir-fry. It was spicy, but not too much. Just enough to make the tongue tingle a bit. It was also quite sweet, but not sickeningly so. When I asked one of the cooks what made it sweet he pulled down a jar of practically-black honey whose musky fragrance, even with the lid firmly closed, dominated a kitchen packed with garlic and scallions. I was smitten.

Continue reading "Sweet and Spicy Mushroom Stir Fry" »