Stir-fry

In this house a simple stir-fry is one of our go-to dishes. Especially for Sunday lunchtime, because we don’t usually get home from church until after way one, and usually don’t eat until two.

We would probably have it with brown rice, or brown rice noodles, which you stir in a couple of minutes before the end. I don’t really have a recipe, cos it’s different every time, but as a rough guide…

• An onion or two (could use one white, one red for a bit of colour)
• A clove or two of garlic
• Chicken or Turkey breast, cut up into the sort of shapes you find in stirfry!
• Some carrot, pealed and cut into long slivers. (don’t know what the technical term is, but long thin bits!)
• At least one thing green - green beans, mange tout, broccoli, courgette
• Probably some red\yellow\green pepper (depending on what we’ve got)
• Mushrooms
• Sweetcorn
• Anything else you have that looks like it wants to be in a stirfry
• Soy Sauce

Start by heating some olive oil in a big pan (we have a wok, but a large frying pan will do). Once it’s heated, add the garlic (either finely chopped, or put through a garlic crusher) and onion, and cook for a couple of minutes. If you’re using raw meat (which I don’t always) add it now as well.

Cook until the meat is looking cooked all over (if it’s still pink inside that’s ok, because it’ll be cooking a bit longer). Start adding the rest of the vegetables. I would probably put the carrot and green beans etc in next. Keep stirring, and add a little more oil if it needs it. Add the rest of the vegetables, probably putting things like mushroom, pepper and sweetcorn in towards the end.

Splosh in a good splash of soy sauce, and stir it all together. Basically, I would go by instinct, but you can taste something like the onion or carrot to see if it’s done to your taste. If you’re using ready cooked meat (for example, we might use the leftovers from a roast pork or beef joint ) they mix that in towards the end, and make sure it gets heater through. If you’re using noodles you might like to add them now.

That’s about it. Sometimes I’ll add a small handful of pine nuts or cashews. Serve with rice, or without, and with the soy sauce bottle handy for if people want to add some more.

If you’re feeling adventurous you can experiment with marinating the raw meat in some interesting concoction for a couple of hours before you cook it.

If you want a more detailed recipe, try this one I just found over at Kalyn’s kitchen.