It’s been a while since I did a foodie post, so I thought I would share one of my more surprising successes. This is a lovely and simple gluten-free vegetarian stir-fry I made with what was left in the cupboard at the end of a long week. It’s a slight variation on our usual stir-fry sauce, but it worked! I particularly loved how well pears go in a stir-fry. It was a rare success in the what’s-in-cupboard-oh-that’ll-do method of cooking.
Now I will say that though my DH and I adored it, the kids were not-so-thrilled. But that’s mostly because it’s a new dish, and doesn’t have meat, and one of them prefers all their veges raw ( we keep a small bowl of uncooked veges for them).We will be doing this recipe again, and I expect that the kids will eventually decide in it’s favour.
Ingredients
2 pears, diced into large 2 cm chunks
1 carrot, sliced thinly
1/2 a capsicum, diced into 1/2 cm chunks
1 cup of peas
A splash of GF soy sauce
1 tsp GF red miso paste
2 dessert spoons of lemon juice
2 drops of hot chilli oil
rice bran oil (for stir-frying)
5 cups of rice
1 dessert spoon of honey
1 tsp brown sugar
chilli-flakes (optional)
Method
Put rice on to cook ( we use a rice cooker ).
Pre-dice all the vegetables. I generally then place each in a small bowl.
Heat the oil (rice + chilli) in a wok or saucepan. Add the carrots and stir for a few minutes till they start to cook. Then add the capsicum. Keep stir-frying until they are mostly cooked ( this only takes minutes).
Add the soy sauce and lemon juice.
Usually miso is added a small amount at a time, but I found that adding it in a large piece and stirring and squishing it on the side of the pan actually worked to dissolve it nicely.
Now add the peas and pear. Add the honey and stir through. Then add the brown sugar.
Stir it all until the pear is just starting to soften – you don’t want it to disintegrate, or be too crunchy, but the time it takes will depend on the ripeness of the pears.
Serve the stir-fry over rice. If you prefer a hotter str-fry, add chilli-flakes, or if you’re courageous add more chilli oil ( ours is super-hot ).
This recipe usually feeds the four of us with a small amount of left-overs – but the kids don’t eat huge amounts of the stir-fry, just kilos of rice, so I’d say it serves 3-4 adults.