My husband is from Hong Kong and whenever he makes dinner for us he always cooks at least two vegetable dishes to go with all the other food on the table. I love this about Chinese cooking – there are always a lot more vegetables on the table than meat.
I used to think Chinese cooking was complicated as I didn’t understand how to use a few ingredients to add serious flavour until my husband showed me how it’s done. The secret is to keep the ingredients list short and simple. Best of all the prep and cooking is super fast.
I sometimes make this dish for myself for lunch as it is (when I’m trying to be healthy), or it goes so well with my chicken, honey, soy, ginger and garlic recipe with rice.
Miraculous ingredient: Oyster mushrooms, Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients chicken stock, Lee Kum Kee light soya sauce, Clearspring sesame oil
Stir fry Chinese oyster mushrooms and spring onions
Ingredients
150g oyster mushrooms (1 pack)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (even though this is Chinese dish I still use olive oil!)
1 brown onion, halved and sliced
5 spring onions, trimmed and sliced diagonally
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
80ml chicken stock (I use Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients chicken stock, it’s the best and I developed it when I was the Ingredients Buyer!) or use a vegetable stock to keep this dish vegetarian
2 tablespoons light soya sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Method
Place a dry medium size frying pan onto a low heat to warm up while you prepare the ingredients.
Prepare and chop all the vegetables before you start cooking as they need to be added quickly to pan once you start. Tear the oyster mushrooms into fairly equal bite size pieces.
Add the oil to the pan and turn the heat up to high (I use the medium size ring on my gas hob). Add the mushrooms and onions, stir and fry for 3 minutes. Next add the spring onions, garlic, light soy sauce and chicken stock, stir and fry for another 3 mintues.
Turn the heat off and stir in the sesame oil.
Note: Once I’ve taken 80ml of chicken stock out of the pouch I put the rest in the freezer and just microwave it from frozen for 4 minutes when I need to use it for another recipe.
Preparation 5 minutes, cooking 6 minutes, 2 adult portions, 2 children portions (if served as a side dish)