Showing posts with label Super Easy.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Super Easy.. Show all posts

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Chinese Five Spice Rice

(This isn't actually my picture but for the sake of getting people's taste buds working I had to include one! I will take a photo of the below recipe and replace the photo ASAP!)

Cooking time ~ 40 minutes
Serves ~ 4 serves

This has a lot of ingredients and makes huge serves, but is perfect to keep for leftovers during the week, just reheat in the wok with a tiny amount of hot water stirred through while reheating if it dries out a little too much.

You will need:
1. large Wok with a lid or cover (I use an electric wok) or very large pan with lid.
2. medium saucepan

INGREDIENTS
  • 2 cups brown rice (brown rice is best for this dish as the nutty flavour is beautiful with the five spice)
  • 350g plain tofu - cubed or even crumbled if you prefer (Tempeh can be used too, or leave out tofu altogether is you like))
  • 3-4 cloves garlic - minced
  • 2cm piece ginger - peeled and minced or very finely diced
  • 4 shallots (scallions) - cut into 1cm lengths
  • 1 cup shredded red cabbage or wombok
  • 1 red onion - diced
  • 1 small zucchini - diced
  • 1 small carrot - diced
  • 1/2 small red capsicum - diced
  • 1 cup broccoli - in small florets
  • 1 cup cauliflower - in small florets
  • Sesame or peanut oil
  • Light soy sauce
  • Rice wine vinegar
  • Chinese Five Spice powder
  • 270ml tin coconut milk (low fat if you like)
  • 1x vegetable stock cube.
  • Fresh coriander

DIRECTIONS
1. Prepare tofu, garlic, ginger and red onion

2. Put rice on to cook for 20 minutes with 4 cups water and the stock cube.

3. While rice is cooking, in hot wok fry up tofu in 1 tablespoon on the oil (more if your wok is sticky) then when tofu nicely browned add onion, garlic and ginger.

4. Lower heat in wok and chop all veggies.

5. Heat wok to high heat again and add veggies (BUT NOT CABBAGE, add at step 9), stir fry using a little more oil if you need, then de-glaze the wok with a few splashes of the vinegar and soy sauce to lift any stuck bits from the wok. Don't over cook your veggies as they will soften when the rice is added and you don't want them soggy.

6. Give rice a stir and then pour in tin of coconut milk, mix well. Rice should now have been cooking about 20 minutes and be about 3/4 cooked.

7. Add rice and coconut milk mixture to the wok and mix well through the veggie and tofu mix. There should still be enough liquid in the rice to have the rice cook the remainder risotto style. If it's too dry add some hot water.

8. Add soy sauce and Chinese Five Spice to taste, I usually use about 3-4 table spoons soy sauce and 3 tablespoons of Five Spice, but always adjust to taste, as I don't like too much soy sauce, and the stock cube already makes this dish quite salty.

9. Add cabbage now, then cover and let rice finish cooking for 10 minutes approximately. If your rice is cooked and there is still liquid, increase heat and stir for a few minutes to evaporate excess liquid, it should be dryer than risotto, not too soggy, but not dry like fried rice. Garnish with fresh coriander.

Serve in large Asian-style bowls

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Yet another stir-fry sauce!

Oooo I have a great addition to my never ending obsession with stir-fry sauces!

This is for one to two serves:

1 TBSP Wasabi paste
(you will hardly notice it, it just gives a lovely flavour, I promise!)
2 TBSP Tahini
3 TBSP Light soy sauce
1 TBSP Mirin
1/4 cup boiling water.

Dissolve wasabi paste and tahini in boiling water in small bowl, add soy sauce and mirin and mix well, then pour over stir-fry veggies and tempeh a few minutes before serving, mix well and serve over basmati, or brown rice or Soba noodles.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Super Easy Recipe, with greens.

Lately I have been eating a lot of variations on 4-5 ingredients because I have been very busy with work and have been cooking for myself only for the past 10 days. Plus I have a thing about greens, and this recipe has 3 green ingredients, which is probably why my iron is so good for a female running vegan!

Here is an easy one that I had for lunch today (about for dinner about 5 nights out of the last 10).......

Ingredients

1. plain tofu, cubed
2. baby spinach
3. 2x shallots, diced
4. 1/2 avocado (or some small broccoli florets if you prefer)
Plus chilli powder/chilli sauce and sesame oil (I know, that's technically 6 ingredients!)

Instructions

1. place big pile of baby spinach in bowl
2. cook up cubed plain tofu with a little bit of sesame oil and a generous dusting of chilli powder (in the absence of my beloved chilli sauce)
3. toss 2 diced shallots to cook in the with tofu
4. add 1/2 small avocado sliced in on top of the baby spinach leaves, then add cooked ingredients when you are happy with how cooked you like your tofu.

When you put the cooked tofu and shallots in on top of the baby spinach the heat wilts it nicely without actually loosing any of the raw green goodness :)

If you don't love chilli (sacrilege!) you can place 1 tablespoon tahini with 2 tablespoons lemon juice in a jar and give it a good shake to combine, and pour that over the tofu.

Baby spinach goes especially well with chilli and tahini flavours I think :)