Im home alone for a week while my Mum and Dad are in Benidorm celebrating his 50th. So im fending for myself for a week, walking round the house in a toga hunting frozen chicken that sort of thing.
Well as in previous ‘cook for yourself or starve’ situations strir fry has come to the rescue. I am yet to meet a food that will not fit nicely into a stir fry. You have what i’d call your usual ingredients such as chicken, peppers, chillies, garlic, oyster sauce, noodles, rice etc etc. However its only when you get free reign over the wok that you start to throw whatever you find around the kitchen in there – and in all honesty it never goes wrong.
Seriously try it one day, take a Wok, slap in some vegetable oil and get it nice and hot, lob some chicken in. Now this is quite important that you add some spices now as it really gets into the chicken and gives it some flavour. Im usually tempted by ‘lazy’ food, that’s actually whats it says on the tub – lazy garlic, some lazy chillies that sort of thing. Don’t really give it any kick but they make it taste fantastic!
While that cooks you get to rummage, but if your hobs anywhere as hot as ours you need to rummage fast as that chicken will try and stick! Some good things to slow the sticking are tins of either bean noodles, or something of that nature, water chestnuts or bamboo shoots. Hard to explain but they come in tins and you just throw them in, as there mostly water based and just slow the whole thing down.
Next im usually quite keen on throwing some sliced, not chopped, sliced mushrooms in, mostly because I love mushrooms. Along with some chopped mini corn on the cobs, some chopped red chillies, peppers, and pour a bit of oyster sauce over the top of this little concoction. Now that’s the basics in place, this is probably your average stir fry.
Next step is the extras, now this can as I said earlier be anything. Empty the drawers, raid the cupboard and raid the fridge it can all go in. Banana, sliced – works. Grate a bit of carrot in there. Potato, onions, any veg, anything! Really it all works, I cant remember the number of different bits I’ve thrown into stir fry’s over the years and just thought “yum, that’s bloody amazing”. A particular favourite is spinach, now this goes in about 1 minute before completion and will shrink down, so if you throw a handful in and think it looks like a lot on the top its not enough. Whack the whole bag in it will shrink down and just mingles in with anything else you have in there.
Uncle bens rice, 2 minutes in the microwave, can of lager out of the fridge, serve and voila – a meal that Mr Ramsay himself would be proud of.
