[lilchoconut]

Rice is not a side-dish (I): Everyday Stir-fry!

Hey there! I’m Chinese, so rice is my staple food. Delicious white rice which I’ll never tire of. I never knew that most western places think of rice as a side, what a shock when I found out at the tender age of 5.

As an aside, whenever I ask “what’s for dinner” at home, my mom (almost) always replies “rice”.
…
So there you have it, according to my home and upbringing, rice is your main dish! (lol)

But in all seriousness, it’s hard to eat rice by itself, unless you have soy sauce.

So, real side-dish (I) = Everyday Stir-fry!


Stir fry is fun, so put in whatever you want, but here’s a list of some things I’ve tried, and would dare to try.

Cook time: varies with what meat you have; 10-### minutes
Serving size: depends on how much of each thing you put in

Ingredients:
- chopped up meat (or meat alternatives: beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, tofu, fish, scallop, squid, crab, conch, and/or etc)
- chopped up vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus, celery, baby corn, sweet peas, green beans, and/or etc)

Notes:
-for meat: if you’re using fresh seafood, be sure to clean it well; fresh scallop is such a hassle, and actually don’t try using fresh crab.
-for vegetables: I would suggest not using the following, anything that is too small like corn or peas, eggplant, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes…
-the best mushrooms (IMO) to use are: king oyster mushroom, white/brown button mushrooms, shitake (though I dislike it most of the time)… [there are a lot of mushrooms, but I only know so many; don’t use enoki…]
-if you’re daring you can add in some freshly sliced fruit; like apple or pear (or even oranges…)
-add a dash of lemon juice, salt, pepper, soy sauce, sugar, or honey for seasoning.


ACTUAL START OF RECIPE:
Description: chunky, crispy, and saucy stir-fry

Directions:
A. Preparing the meat
1) Most meat and meat alternatives can be prepared by just chopping to your standard Halloween chocolate size (I need better size-references)
2) Season lightly with soy sauce, a tsp of flour/corn starch, a pinch of salt and pepper, and 1/2 tsp sugar
3) Mix well; I usually use my hands, but mix with a spoon if you can mix evenly
4) Marinate for 5-20 minutes if desired, or cook straight away

B. Preparing the vegetables
1) Can be done while meat is cooking/marinating, depending on what kind of meat you are using, and/or how hard long it will take to cook vs. how long it takes to cut veggies
2) (Wash veggies).Cut and dispose of non-edible parts of veggies
3) Season with salt and pepper

C. Stir-frying
1) In a skillet/pan/wok heat up some oil; 1 tbsp MAX for one serving
2) At medium-high heat, cook meat (‘pork, chicken’); cook for about 3 min
3) At medium-high heat, cook meat group 2 (‘beef, tofu, squid, conch’) & veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, celery, green beans); cook for another 2 minutes
4) At medium-high heat, cook meat group 3 (‘shrimp, scallop’) & veggies (‘mushrooms, sweet pea, baby corn’) for another 3 minutes

[Steps 2-4 cook until ingredient is half ‘cooked’]

D. Optional Stuff
1) Make a sauce (will unify the dish with same flavour, while different levels or flavour are found with your variety of ingredients)
-using the marinate base, i.e. the plate/bowl you used to marinate, add in 1/2 tsp of flour/corn starch, 1/2 tsp of sugar, 1 tbsp soy sauce) and 3-5 tbsp of warm water (about 1/4 cup)
-mix well
-pour into skillet/pan/wok and bring to a simmer
-optionally cover the skillet/pan/wok to cook ingredients more
-add more water if sauce is too thick for you; remember that once cooled, a more watery sauce will thicken
2) Add sliced fruit, and or nuts like almond, cashews, walnuts, pine nuts, peanuts (anything else?)
3) Add salt and pepper to your discretion.
4) Optionally add a dash of lemon, and or substitute all sugar for honey

Serve with Rice


Sorry if it’s a messy recipe
I can rewrite it into sub-groupings for whatever ingredients you want, but all my stir-fries are generally cooked the same way.
Experiment by adding ingredients sparsely; FYI, I most definitely would not add all listed ingredients all in one go. (Would be kind of overkill, and gross really)
Mix and match, make more than one stir-fry at once; All you need is two different pans~