Stir-Fry

[kerravonsen]

I felt like rambling about my favourite easy-to-prepare meal for one person: my one-pan stir-fry. It isn't so much a recipe as a template, where things can be substituted. It makes enough for 2-3 meals for one person. Not because I always want to cook in bulk, but basically because predefined packet sizes lead towards that amount of food. This is NOT a "from scratch" stir-fry. Doing that is just not worthwhile for a single person. This has a number of short-cuts in it.

If you say "it is a waste of money to buy pre-prepared food", consider that in a single-person household,

• it is more wasteful to buy a half cabbage and throw half of it away
• the motivation to cook healthy food is much lower, so anything which helps that is good
• I'm creating jobs!

If you say "it is lazy to buy pre-prepared food", then I invite you stop being a hypocrite, quit your job, take up farming, and harvest your own damn cabbages.

Equipment:

• A large deep-sided pan. With a lid. Normal depth of pan ensures you will spill food over the side.
• A large spatula. (If the pan is non-stick, don't forget the spatula needs to be non-stick-safe)
• A large bowl from which to eat the stir-fry. Not a measly cereal bowl, but a deep bowl of the kind in which Asian food is served. Or a plate, I suppose.
• A fork or spoon or chopsticks with which to eat your meal.
  • Or all of the above.

Ingredients Template:

• 400-500g meat
• 200-300g packet of coleslaw mix (not coleslaw, just the vegetables, mainly shredded cabbage)
• other vegetables
• 1 pouch of pre-cooked rice (I use brown rice, but other types are fine)
• Soy sauce
• other sauces
• herbs/spices
• garnishes (if you want to go the effort)
• preferred cooking oil (I use olive oil)

Options for Meat:

I usually go for one of these:

• Beef, pre-cut in stir-fry strips
  • Diced should work too, but I haven't tried it
• Kangaroo, pre-cut in stir-fry strips (yes, I'm in Australia, we eat Kangaroo)
• Chicken breast chunks
• Large (425g) tin of Tuna
• Pre-cooked chicken left over from the previous demolishment of a chicken from an earlier meal. Chopped, if need be.

I haven't tried other meats, but that doesn't mean things like diced pork or lamb wouldn't work. Tofu is another option, but I have zero information about cooking with that. You're on your own there.

Options for Vegetables:

These are by no means exclusive, just suggestions.

Can-eat-raw vegetables:

• the coleslaw mix (obviously)
• shredded carrot
• Snow Peas (aka Mange Tout)
• Sugar-snap peas
• Kale
• Capsicum
• Cashews, peanuts, almonds (good with chicken)

Some people like eating mushrooms raw, so they could be on that list. I don't.

Other vegetables:

• Onions
• Mushrooms
  • I tend not to use these with fish, though.
• Corn
• Peas
• Green beans
• Broccoli

Corn, peas, green beans, and onions are good from frozen, too.

Garnishes:

• Bean sprouts
• Parsley
• Spring Onion
• Chives
• Wood Sorrel/Oxalis leaves (good with fish)

Options for Herbs/Spices/Sauces:

Again, these are just suggestions.

Good to add to cooking meat:

• Garlic
• Ginger
• Chilli
• Worcestershire Sauce (good with red meat)
• Plum sauce (with red meat)
• Black Bean sauce (red meat)

Add later:

• Any herbs you like
• Dill is good with fish
• As is lemongrass
• Tarragon is good with mushrooms

Add after cooking:

• MORE soy sauce?
• Lemon Juice (good with fish)
• Vinegar (good with fish)

Cooking Template:

1. Splash the pan with oil.
2. If you are cooking raw meat, put that in first, along with any flavourings which do well being added while the meat is cooking.
   • If you are cooking red meat, brown it, but don't cook it all the way through, or it will get tough.
   • Chicken is more forgiving in that regard
   • I have no advice about cooking pork
3. If you are cooking onions, put that in next.
4. If you are using frozen vegetables, that goes in next.
5. If you are using pre-cooked/tinnned meat, that goes in next.
6. Put in any remaining flavourings.
7. If you are using mushrooms, put them in. Lower the heat, put the lid on, and let it steam for a bit. Unless you like your mushrooms hardly-cooked, in which case, put them in at the next step.
8. Now the can-eat-raw vegetables. This includes the coleslaw mix. Lower the heat, put the lid on, and let it steam for a bit. But not too much. These vegetables are easy to overcook.
9. Stir everything up again. Increase the heat a bit.
10. Add the pre-cooked rice. Splash on a generous amount of soy sauce, so that the rice will end up tinted brown.
11. Use the spatula to turn everything upside-down, so that most of the rice is on the bottom of the pan, so that it can heat up quickly.
12. Serve in a bowl. Add optional garnishes/sauces.

I hope that's been helpful for at least some of you.

Comments

[vilakins]

That has been helpful! I'm with you - anything that makes it easier to eat lots of vegs and other healthy things is a win.

I admit to using packets of pre-cooked rice (Sunrice Basmati or brown usually - same low GI!) but I hadn't thought of coleslaw mix! I've used it for salads, but not stir-fries. For those I generally use capsicums and onions as the base plus any other vegs on hand, but I do like the idea of coleslaw mix, perhaps with udon or other pre-cooked noodles instead of the rice.

I've also used eggs as the protein. My go-to sauce mix comprises soy sauce, ginger, chilli, and fish sauce (goes with most things) and depending on my I feel, some peanut butter with thickens the mix.

[kerravonsen]

I'm glad it has been helpful! (hugs)

I'm very glad I discovered pre-cooked brown rice, because I would never have had the patience to cook it myself. And it's really good for stir-fry, because it doesn't stick.

The hugest hurdle for stir-fry is chopping up all the vegetables, so having as many as you can pre-chopped (or not needing to be chopped) is a win. And cabbage is a really nice thing to have in a stir-fry.
One can also get pre-made stir-fry mix, which I do use sometimes, but the coleslaw mix is cheaper and a smaller size, so that works better for me. Though sometimes when they've been out of standard coleslaw mix, they substitute coleslaw-with-beetroot-mix, which is weird, because it colours everything purple.

Hmmm, it would be nice to try it with pre-cooked Udon noodles.

I usually find if I try adding in eggs, they just stick in a mess to the bottom of the pan. Any tips about that?

I've never tried fish sauce. I thought it was just for fish?

Peanut butter, eh? Giving it a Satay spin? Interesting. Not something I'm likely to try, though, because I'd actually have to buy some peanut butter. I love peanuts, but not peanut butter.

[vilakins]

Basmati rice doesn't stick either; it and brown are both good, and healthy too. Sometimes I use a packet of so-called wild rice because it's similar and pretty.

Fish sauce is made of fish but goes with anything for a nice Asian favour, rather like the Roman fish sauce garum which they ate with everything. Just a little adds flavour.

With eggs, I beat them, then either just add them and stir through as they cook so that they're mixed right in, or gently fry them, cut into strips, and then add those. In both cases at the end, if that helps. I almost forgot, another thing I like in fried-rice stir fries is drained lentils. Any legume would be good, but lentils are nice and small so they go well.

Yes, adding PB to the other sauces while they cook (a couple of tsps or so) thickens and is very like a satay sauce - which I love anyway. But if you don't, no probs! I usually prefer the lighter stir fries but sometimes that one hits the spot.

[kerravonsen]

Thanks!

[watervole]

Was it the Romans who used to add fish sauce to almost everything?

Ah, yes they did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum#:~:text=Garum%20is%20a%20fermented%20fish,Rome%2C%20Carthage%20and%20later%20Byzantium.

[nocturnus33]

Hubby and I are home alone, which changes cooking habits. It's weird after spending years buying food in industrial quantities to feed my troop, we now prepare very little. It helps that we have a big freezer, so everything that's left over goes into the freezer.

[kerravonsen]

Seriously, I do not understand why they make freezers in standard refridgerators so TINY. I have a separate upright freezer which is, frankly, bigger than my fridge.

[nocturnus33]

This is very true. Absurd.

[watervole]

It's a shame people don't sell half cabbages and the like. There must be lots of people who only need a smaller amount.

[kerravonsen]

Oh, they do sell half-cabbages. But for one person, even a half-cabbage is a lot.

[watervole]

Have you ever made sauerkraut? We make it when we have cabbages off the allotment. (Kimchi too)

[kerravonsen]

I don't think I've even eaten sauerkraut (or kimchi).

[watervole]

I rather like it. A Czech friend (Vera Jezkova) of mine used to talk about making sauerkraut every year, and I decided to try.

Then I was watching some Korean TV on Netflix and the characters kept eating kimchi in various forms.

Kimchi is essentially spicy sauerkraut with extra veg in addition to cabbage.

They both go nicely with a number of foods.

[watervole]

And they both keep well once made as long as you seal the jar.