Stir Fried Vegetables
Asian style vegetable cooking is notable for its colours and flavour. While roast vegetables or steamed vegetables can be tasty with a meal, stir-fried vegetables are much more interesting in the tastes and textures. They are also very healthy as they are cooked for a very short period and thus retain more of the nutrients. As with most recipes here, you can use whatever vegetables you have to hand.
Stir-Fried Vegetables
Ingredients:
3 sticks celery
250 g Chinese Cabbage (wong buk)
250 g broccoli
100 g green beans or snow peas
2 small white onions
3 Tbsp oil for cooking
1/2 cup rich chicken stock
1 chicken stock cube (optional)
1 Tbsp Oyster sauce
2 tsp light soy sauce
s tsp finely chopped ginger
Method:
- Prepare vegetables and cust into even sized pieces. Keep each type separate.
- Heat wok, add oil and heat. Lightly fry ginger for 6 – 7 seconds.
- Add vegetables to cook according to hardness. Stir fry constantly to keep from burning. If the wok is too dry you can add a little stock.
- Crumble stock cube into remaining stock and add to wok together with oyster sauce. Season with soya sauce.
- Sauce can be thickened if desired with a little cornflour blended with cold water. Bring to boil and serve immediately.
Variations
I usually include some carrot and baby corn in this just to have a variety of colours. Water chestnuts can be used to give more interest to the texture. Red capsicum makes a bright splash of colour when it is in season as well as providing a dose of vitamin C.
Tips
If you want to prepare this ahead of time, you can blanche the vegetables instead of cooking them in the wok. Then when you want to serve them, just cook the ginger, reheat the vegetables with the sauce and serve.
This makes a great accompaniment to just about anything.
