mushroom fried rice and veggies in soy sauce
Confession time :
Confession #1 – I have had amazing food in China. Stuff that blew me away. The way in which they cook, serve and enjoy food is something marvelous. However Indian Chinese is one of my many comfort blankets. Nothing beats Gobi Manchurian (For the uninitiated, Gobi Manchurian is Cauliflower cooked with spices in a wok – Something apparently “Chinese”, but which probably took birth in our fatherland Kerala.
Confession #2 – This was supposed to be a ten minute recipe for A (Well I promised her ten to cook and ten to prepare). It takes probably half hour to make if you’re uber efficient in the kitchen. It took me forty. So whoops 🙂
In any case – its very simple, straightforward, extremely vegetarian and yummy.
Here goes
For the fried rice :
- mushrooms. quartered – 1 cup
- cabbage, chopped finely – 1 cup
- rice, washed – 1 cup
- ginger, julienne – 1 inch piece
- garlic, julienne – 5 cloves
- spring onions with stalks, chopped – 10
- soy sauce – 1 tbsp
- black pepper – 1 tbsp
- salt – 1 1/2 tsp
For the veggies
- tofu, cubed – 1 1/2 cups
- zucchini, 1 inch pieces – 1 cup
- broccoli, medium sized florets – 1 cup
- bell pepper, three different colours, chopped into small pieces – 1 1/2 cups
- baby corn, sliced lengthwise – 4
- onions, quartered – 2
- garlic, chopped – 4 cloves
- soy sauce – 2 tbsp
- tomato ketchup – 1 tbsp
- green chilli sauce – 1 tbsp
- green chilli, slit – 1
- black pepper powder – 1 tbsp
- salt – 1 tbsp
- corn flour – 1 tbsp
- water – 500 ml
Veggies :
Mmmm.. Tofu
- Lets start with the veggies – Cut everything beforehand and keep ready in separate bowls because we will have to add them in order.
- In a rather large container, mix the green chilli sauce, soy sauce and tomato ketchup along with 500 ml of water and the black pepper.
- Heat some oil in a wok. Once hot, add the garlic, onion, green chilli and bell pepper along with 1 tsp of salt and cook till the peppers become soft. Add the broccoli, zucchini and the baby corn next and stir, slowly adding the soy sauce + water mixture. Â The water should ideally be enough to cover all vegetables. In case some are not, feel free to add water. Add more salt here to suit taste.
- Once the water starts to boil, add the tofu and let it simmer for about 5 min.
- Mix the corn flour with some of the water from the wok and stir the mixture in thickening the water.
- I find Zucchini to be the slow-poke. So when the Zucchini is cooked, remove from the heat and transfer contents to a different vessel.
Rice
Shape does matter
- For the rice, use the same wok (Residual flavours FTW).
- Cook the rice in a pressure cooker or however till the grains are cooked but separate. As soon as the rice is done, spread it out on a plate and cool.
- Heat some oil and add the garlic, spring onions and the ginger. Remember you WILL need to stir a lot soon.
- As soon as the garlic starts to brown, add the mushrooms with 1 tsp of salt and start stirring continuously. Remember that this is when things start sticking to the pan, so keep at it till the mushrooms start letting out water. Toss the mushrooms around the entire wok so that the water cleans all residue and adds to the flavour (YUMMM).
- As soon as the mushrooms reduce to about half their original size, add the cabbage along with the soy sauce, 1/2 cup of water, 1 tsp of salt and 1 tbsp of black pepper.
- Once the cabbage is cooked (Not too soft, crunchy works best), add the rice in small quantities and toss the mixture together. Remember to be gentle now, else you will end up making a paste out of the rice.
- Serve it and eat it I say.
the tasteworks 