As you know I love Chinese food. Love it. Especially the usual takeaway dishes.
Hard to make it home though right? Authentically. (Well it is for me!)
A recent attempt to make an oriental style dish of greens was a bit of a mare.
I find it difficult to tread that fine line between cooked quickly and raw. So I end up over-compensating and over-cooking.
I boiled the broccoli and pak choy first, before adding to a hot wok of oil and garlic:
Sadly of course it was too much and everything turned a bit mushy. To try and crisp it all back up I cooked it for even longer in the wok, adding more oil, more soy sauce and really turning the heat up.
All far far too much.
Still after a sprinkling of sesame seeds I almost got something worth eating…
BY A BABY.
One sniff of the fork and it all broke down into a greeny nothingness.
I know! – Takeaway Food For Weaning Toddlers, it could catch on right?
Don’t steal my idea ok, I’m working on the packaging right now.
Going into Dragon’s Den next month.
Tags: Cooking, Takeaway, Veg Box, Vegetarian, World Food
I know you are anxious about stir frying, try cutting the veg quite small so you don’t have to boil first. Got my first pen pal connection today. excited!
Thanks love, that is a good idea – my chunks of broccollli are quite large… Same when I made Jamie Olivers Vegetable Tempura – cauli florets far too large – but then didn’t cook. I need to tailor sizes of things to style of cooking…. headache!
One month we’ll get each other for FoodiePenPals! x
Oh dear. Stir frying appears to be so easy on the t.v., doesn’t it? I had no end of bother with it when I first started out. My hubby HATES hard veg, so my liking for crunchy stir fried veg was immediately wrong for him. To get the veg to the degree of softness that he preferred, meant it all turned mushy and was truly disgusting. Since then, I’ve refined what vegetables I can stir fry that suit hubby – like bok choi, baby sweetcorn, savoy cabbage, onion (particularly spring onion), thinly sliced red pepper etc. The trouble is, that the stir fry packs are so inexpensive in comparison with getting all the separate ingredients, so we rarely indulge these days. However, this very evening he’s attempting to make a Chinese style Kale dish, which involves stir frying the Kale with garlic, soy sauce & oyster sauce. I’m holding my breath! lol
From reading your account of your toddler’s stir fry, it seems you know what you did wrong – and I’d say to you to try again. Don’t be downhearted – you’re not alone in finding the art of stir frying to be a challenge!
Hi Jenny – thanks for that, how did the Chinese kale go?
That’s something that can be made quite crispy can’t it?
I have to say I much prefer the crunchier vegetables in a stir fry (like you) so really not sure why I feel the need to boil. Am going to go smaller and not boil and see how I get on….
x