Being quarantined at home has given me so much more time now to actually cook dinner from scratch and not have to make frozen or ready made meals. Not that there is anything wrong with frozen or readymade meals. For me personally, cooking has been a passion and something I love to do to destress after a long day at work. But pre-quarantine days for me meant forgetting to take meat out of the freezer to defrost and then coming home late from work and resorting to just making quick frozen meals.

Now that I am home all day, to keep meals interesting, I typically plan the menu for the week on sundays and try to make something unique and different each day. Like meatless Monday’s, Taco Tuesday, WTF do I make on Wednesday’s, Indian Thursday’s, Italian Friday’s and let’s see how the weather is on Saturday/ Sunday kinda meals.

This meatless Monday I decided to make an Indo Chinese style seafood pepper garlic stir fry. It is super simple, tasty and like most stirfrys, very quick to make!

Ingredients

• 1 lb mixed seafood (I used scallops, shrimp and calamari)
• 1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 1/2 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tablespoon pepper powder
• 1/2 red onion chopped into cubes
• one cup of mixed peppers, sliced (I used mini red, yellow and orange peppers)
• 2 jalapeño, sliced
• 6 – 7 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1/4 piece ginger, sliced very thinly
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1/2 cup scallions
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• oil for deep frying and butter for stir fry

Method

• Start with coating the seafood mixture with cornstarch, flour, salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and 1/2 tsp water (just enough to let it be pasty and stick to the seafood)

• Then deep fry the seafood for about 1 – 2 minutes. Do not let the seafood over cook. Take it out immediately and place over a paper towel to soar off excess oil. If you want to make this extra crispy , you can use more cornstarch or even rice flour.

• In a wok and on high flame, heat some butter. Then add in the peppers, onions, jalapeño, ginger and garlic. Fry for about one minute tossing frequently. Add a pinch of salt to this while frying.
  
  Bonus Tip : With stirfy you always want to make sure you have all your ingredients prepped and ready to throw into the wok. Since the actual cook time is very short, everything should be kept ready ahead. Also always stirfy on a high flame.

• Next, add the seafood mixture, soy sauce, pepper, chili garlic sauce, chili flakes, ketchup and fry for another 3 – 4 minutes tossing frequently.
  
  Bonus Tip: You want to ensure that all the sauces are absorbed into the seafood and it’s not watery. You also want to make sure that the seafood is not overcooked. Shrimp and scallops cook on a high flame within 3-4 minutes and considering you have already deep fried them you don’t want them sitting on the flame for too long or they will get chewy. Calamari is typically ready once it firms up.

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• Finally, toss in the chopped scallions and remove from heat. Serve immediately. I used a cast iron pan to serve which I already preheated in an oven. So when I placed the seafood stirfy on it, it remained hot and sizzling. Garnish with some more scallions and cilantro. Goes well served over white rice.