Under the weather and craving chocolate, what did I do? Eat a vitamin-packed stir fry? Well, I did, but I didn’t do it instead of eating chocolate. I ate the damn chocolate. And exceptionally enjoyable it was, too. Then, satisfied of that very particular craving and determined to fill myself up with goodness, I made this stir fry, full of green vegetables. I didn’t have any chillies to hand, so used some homemade chilli jam for spice, which gave just the right amount of heat and also balanced the flavours really well too – if you’d rather use fresh chilli, perhaps throw in a couple of teaspoons of sugar to give a bit of sweetness. Of course, use whatever vegetables you like. Sometimes I make a stir fry to use up what I have in the fridge – but this wasn’t one of those occasions – I wanted this exact combination of vegetables! Ok, the beetroot and radish tops were an afterthought, but a particularly pleasing one, being that they’re sort of BOGOFs of the vegetable world…
Ingredients
Shredded meat from 1 already roasted duck leg
1 small white onion, finely sliced
150g bean sprouts
60g savoy cabbage, shredded
1/2 green pepper, sliced
80g purple sprouting broccoli, trimmed into even sized pieces
3 celery sticks, cut into batons
A handful of beetroot tops, shredded
A handful of radish tops
3 spring onions, green tops discarded and ends cut into batons
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, cut into thin batons
3 large cloves of garlic, finely sliced
1 rounded tsp. five spice
1 tbsp. chilli jam
3 tbsp. soy sauce
Juice of 1/2 small lime
Black pepper
1 tbsp. flavourless oil
About 2 tbsp. chopped corriander
About 10g sesame seeds
Method
Put the oil in a large pan to heat. Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds in a small dry pan, keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn.
When the oil is hot, add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the broccoli, pepper, cabbage, celery, spring onion, leaves, ginger, garlic, and duck, and cook for about five minutes over a fairly high heat, stirring often to make sure nothing sticks to the pan.
Add the bean sprouts to the pan, then sprinkle over the five spice and add the soy, chilli jam and lime juice. Season with pepper and cook for a further three minutes. Taste, adjust seasoning if necessary, then stir through the coriander. Serve sprinkled with the sesame seeds.
Yummy! I really love your choices of veggies (and the chocolate – you have to have a treat sometimes!) Hope you’re starting to feel better.
Yeah, I was really craving this particular combination (maybe the vitamins were calling to me?!) And thanks, I do feel better today!