I am always on the lookout for tasty vegetarian recipes in which I can use our home grown veg. I also look for recipes that enable us to make use of home grown and foraged greens. We also like to grow bean sprouts and use them in recipes as well.
Low and behold, this recipe allows us to make use of all three! It is constructed from several authentic Chinese dishes, but seeing as I have altered it somewhat to take into account what we have and use regularly here, and a bit more towards our taste, I was not comfortable in labelling it authentic. Rather, it is in the Chinese style.
My apologies to any Asian chefs out there, for butchering more of your recipes! For those playing at home, the original recipes came from an excellent book called ‘Seductions of Rice’ by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Daguid. It talks about rice, and rice recipes from all over the world, but large sections are taken up with the dishes which accompany the rice.
The way I have structured the recipe is that (with the exception of the rice cooker) all of the action takes place in a single wok, quickly rinsed between dishes, with all of the energy, flavour, money and nutrient savings of the stir fry cooking method.
Ingredients
The rice
For the two of us I initially used one and a half rice cooker cups of rice, but two was better.
Chinese Veg and Greens
½ cup of stock or water
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
¼ teaspoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of peanut oil or similar
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
3 spring onions (cut into 25mm lengths) (or just use spring onion leaves if you are growing them)
12mm of ginger, grated
200gm to 250gm of Cut up veg (depending on what is available, I used broccoli and cauliflower cut into small florets and beans cut into 20mm lengths but sliced mushrooms and/or carrots would be good too!)
200gm to 250gms of greens, sliced (I used about half and half of silver beet leaves and mix of sow thistle, dandelion and mallow leaves)
2 teaspoons of cornflour suspended in 1 tablespoon of cold water.
Yummy sprouts
1 or 2 spring onion leaves cut up into 25mm lengths
1 tablespoon of peanut oil or similar
3 cups of mung bean sprouts (if you are growing these yourself, remove the green seed coats before starting the recipe as they have an unpleasant texture and can take time to remove)
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
Sesame oil
Method
- cut up the veg, prepare the greens and measure out the sauces and have them ready to go
- rinse the rice and put it into the rice cooker (assuming you are using one, otherwise use the absorption method and prepare it beforehand) turn it on.
- add the oil to a hot wok and stir fry the veg for 5 minutes, remove to a bowl
- reheat the wok and add a bit more oil f required, add in the garlic, ginger and spring onions, stir fry for 30 seconds
- throw in the greens and stir fry for 1 ½ to 2 minutes, return the veg to the wok
- add in the stock and soy sauce and bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 3 minutes
- add the cornflour and water and stir fry until it boils and thickens, remove to a serving plate and rinse the interior of the wok
- Replace the wok on the burner, on high heat and add the oil.
- Add the spring onions and bean sprouts and stir fry vigorously, using the charn (stir fry tool) to spread and press them against the hot sides of the wok for a minute.
- add the salt and stir fry for another minute
- add the soy sauce and rice vinegar and stir fry for a further minute.
- turn it out onto a serving dish and drizzle with sesame oil.
The rice cooker should by now be finished and on ‘heat’. We serve by filling small Chinese bowls with rice, covering the top with veg and greens, than adding some of the beansprouts on top of that.
The above recipe makes enough for two. Enjoy!
