The Chinese Spicy Eight Treasures Stir-Fry is a delicious and lucky dish made with eight key ingredients. Enjoy the auspicious flavors and spice in every bite of this family favorite.
Another staple of traditional Shanghaiese home cooking is this Spicy Eight Treasures Stir Fry.
You and your family can customize the dish to your tastes using your favorite ingredients. Changes bring about new tastes.
To reduce the heat, use sweet bean paste instead of hot bean paste. To make your own spin on the Chinese eight treasures stir fry, feel free to improvise with different ingredients instead of the ones I used here.
You can use anything from lotus root to shiitake mushrooms to chicken to bamboo shoots if it has a firm texture and can hold its own in the dish. Eight items should suffice. The shrimp can be found in the dry goods section of any Asian supermarket.
Ingredients:
- 2 heads of peeled and chopped garlic
- 1 cup of spiced bean curd (½-inch cubes)
- 1 cup of carrot (½-inch cubes)
- 1 cup of frozen shelled edamame; thawed
- 1 cup of lean pork (½-inch cubes)
- 1 cup of rinsed and drained raw shelled peanuts
- ½ cup of rinsed and drained small dried shrimp
- 1 cup of diced green pepper
- 3 tablespoons of cooking oil
- 2 tablespoons of shaoxing wine
- 2 tablespoons of spicy bean paste (doubanjiang)
- 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of Lao Gan Ma brand black bean chili sauce
Instructions:
- Prepare the bean curd in a wok or skillet with a teaspoon of oil and 2 minutes of stir-frying time over medium heat. Remove it from the wok and set it aside. Cook the carrot in a teaspoon of oil over medium heat for about two minutes or until it softens.
- Put it in a separate bowl and remove it from the wok. Two more times, using both the edamame and the cubed pork, repeat the process and set aside.
- The next step is adding 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet and stirring the garlic for 1 minute. Put in the shrimp and mix everything together. Toss in the peanuts and continue stirring for another three to five minutes, or until a pleasant aroma develops. After that, toss in the green pepper and combine everything thoroughly.
- It’s time to throw in the cooked pork, bean curd, carrots, and edamame. Keep stirring, because it will take a few more minutes of cooking for everything to come together. Black bean chili sauce, sugar, sesame oil, and cooking wine should be added. Keep stirring until most of the liquid evaporates and the ingredients are evenly coated with the sauce.
- Prepare the plates!