Another vegetarian dish? Have I gone off the meat? Well, maybe, but only because of too much all-you-can-eat barbecue, table cooking nonsense (Yakiniku" Korean barbecue, and "Jingis Khan," Mongolian barbecue are very big over here).
So, to mix it up a bit I cook vegetarian quite a bit at the moment.
Anyway, "Cantonese," I hear you think, "the bland glue sauce cuisine?" Yup, love that stuff. It takes me back to simple meals of Cashew Chicken, or Sweet and Sour Pork balls, Black Bean Beef, or Honey Chicken at the Chinese Restaurant in Huonville that was in the service station (which was later the subject of an arson attack that I went to school with the perpetrators). If you don't go too fry crazy or batter mad, this style of food isn't too bad for you, but fried food is all a little carcinogenic due to the high cooking temperatures , so don't eat it too often. Mix up your cooking styles - steamed, baked, raw, stewed, or in a soup, a little bit of everything is best. And please, don't forget to wash your vegetables for stir fries, nothing tastes worse than gritty bok choy.
Ingredients
2 thin leeks, chopped into 3 cm lengths, up to but not including the green bits at the top
2 sticks of celery, angle chopped into 0.5-1cm slices
1 medium carrot, peeled and angle chopped into 0.5-1cm slices
1 golf ball sized lump of fresh ginger, julienned into matchstick sized pieces
Clouds ear or maitake mushrooms, sliced
Deep fried tofu squares, either made yourself or supermarket bought (for instructions on how to deep fry tofu, please refer to my Pad Thai recipe)
8 or so baby corn spears, cut in half
Half a yellow capsicum, julienned
8 or so whole green Japanese shishito peppers with the stems cut off
3 baby bok choy, the base cut off and the leaves separated
Oil for frying (blended vegetable, canola, peanut oil, but not olive oil)
1 heaped tablespoon of potato starch or corn flour
1 teaspoon of ground white pepper
1/4 of a teaspoon of ground ginger
10g sachet of dashi no moto powder
1/2 cup of hot water
1 tablespoon of sherry or Chinese rice wine
Method
1. Put your rice on to cook.
2. Prepare vegetables, by cutting them as specified above. Put the slower cooking vegetables listed at the start of the ingredients together in one bowl and the faster cooking vegetables listed together at the end in another bowl.
3. Put starch, pepper, ginger and dashi in a bowl and combine them well. Heat your water (ie: boil kettle). Do not combine the water and dry ingredients yet.
4. When your rice is finished cooking, put the oil in a pan or wok and heat it until glistening. You don't want it full on, but you want it pretty damn hot. Watch the oil... if it's smoking, you'd be better off turning the heat down a little. Add the first bowl of slower cooking vegetables to the pan, and toss them about, coating them in the oil for about a minute.
5. Add the mushrooms and cook for about a minute, add the tofu and cook for about 30 seconds. Stir constantly.
6. Add the water and sherry to the starch and seasonings mix, and blend thoroughly. Add the fast cooking vegetables and the sauce simultaneously. Stir, coating the vegetables in the sauce.
7. Whilst your last vegetables are cooking, serve your rice in small bowls. Once your bok choy has wilted, slide your vegetable stir fry into a serving dish, and serve immediately, with soy sauce or oyster sauce to taste.
And hopefully, if you're lucky like me, your husband might say "this is delicious, it's just what I was craving."
- If you have no access to fancy mushrooms or Japanese vegetables, please substitute normal button mushrooms and half a green capsicum, julienned
