Tuesday 3 May 2011

Open Sesame

Sometimes the quickest thing to eat in the world when you’re on the go is Chinese food. Who doesn’t love Chinese?! I know that I do, but it’s obviously such a guilty pleasure. And there are a lot of things going on in fast food Chinese that you just can’t replica at your own home, like those delicious little won ton things. Well, enough with that, we all know how to make a stir-fry or maybe we all don’t? I made a stir-fry as a quick meal the other night out of lack of time, effort and energy. I wanted to share the quick sauce I made up that could go with virtually anything you wanted. I made my stir-fry with lots of vegetables such as zucchini (courgette), carrot, celery, onion, mange tout (snow peas), cauliflower, leeks, mushrooms, yellow and orange peppers, and garlic. My protein in the meal was prawns (shrimp) but you could use anything your heart desires.

For the Sauce:
Ingredients:
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp powdered ginger
2 tbsp corn starch (corn flour)
1 tsp sesame oil
½ tsp chilli flakes
shake onion powder
shake garlic powder
couple good squeezes of Sriracha sauce (the sauce with the bird on it)
 ½ Water

Mix together in a medium bowl and add the prawns (or whatever you wish to marinade)

After sauce has been prepared, go ahead and start your rice or egg noodles, whatever you’re eating with the stir-fry.

To start the stir-fry Slice all the veggies and group according to the time it takes to cook them:

  1. Zucchini (courgette)
    Carrot
    Celery
    Onion
    Peppers
  2. Cauliflower
    Leeks
    Garlic
    Mushrooms
    Mange Tout (snow peas)

To Cook:
 
Cook group one veggies in a splash of olive oil and sauté for 3 minutes on high heat

Next add group two and cook until they’re just getting soft, about 4 minutes

Then, add sauce and prawns and cook until vegetables are as firm or soft as you like.





This is just my version of a quick stir-fry, none of these ingredients are essential to having a great stir-fry. Anything that you like can be used, for instance you could add cabbage, or bean sprouts, or anything you have. The point is, the sauce is versatile, and you can make it as spicy or non-spicy as you like. Everything in cooking is about tailoring to your needs. As you can see this can make for a quick dinner, or it also keeps in the fridge for a delicious light lunch the following day. Beef up the fibre and serve with brown basmati rice or whole wheat egg noodles. Tofu is a great addition but I suggest you cook it separately, look out for my tofu marinade, guaranteed to make tofu taste like you’ve never had it before. Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. I'm going through your recipes and making a shopping list of ingredients. I don't know if you noticed, but this recipe is lacking the consistency of all the others b/c it doesn't have a list of ingredients. Just an FYI ;)

    ReplyDelete