As mentioned previously, with our bi-weekly CSA, and to a lesser extent our little backyard garden beds, we constantly have a plethora of vegetables through the summer. One easy way to use some of these up are stir fries, which I've been doing like once a week or so. If necessary thaw and cook some chicken or steak, remove and do the veggies, and at the end combine everything with a sauce. Last year I preferred these with noodles, like ramen, but this year we've done almost entirely rice, more on that in a bit.
There isn't anything that's going to be overly profound here, but I've been extremely happy with two elements and used them repeatedly of late. Plus my wife will, hopefully, appreciate the notes. The first is a quick and easy sauce using ingredients we typically have on hand and one that thickens nicely, an essential part of a good stir fry. The second is an absolutely delicious rice made with coconut milk.
The stir fry sauce came from Googling 'quick stir fry sauce' or something like that, and the post where I've looked up the recipe is literally '5-Minute Stir Fry Sauce.' Grab these ingredients:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water (or broth/stock)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp rice vinegar (or rice wine)
2 cloves garlic, finely diced/pressed (or 1/4 tsp garlic powder)
1+ tsp grated ginger (I highly recommend buying 'ginger paste')
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp cornstarch (the thickening agent)
It has everything you'd think that would go into a good Asian sauce: soy, sesame, rice, ginger and garlic, plus a sweetener. The ratios are what can be tough and this one I think nails it. Feel free to add more or less honey depending on how much sugar you want. I'll make this in a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, whisk and pour over the stir fry shortly before it's done, giving it enough time to thicken before eating.
Now the rice. I think I was inspired by this post for making long grain white rice in the Instant Pot. For a while I didn't want to use, and clean, our Instant Pot to just make rice but I've wholeheartedly changed my mind on that. It's so worth it to have it work out every time and not babysit boiling water on the stove. Anyway that post linked above also had a number of rice variations, one of which was with coconut. So I combined the two posts and made coconut rice in the Instant Pot. It's been fantastic with a bunch of dishes, like curry or bibimbap, in addition to stir fry, and we've had it a ton lately. You need to try it. Take:
1+1/2 cup long grain rice
1 can (13-14 oz) coconut milk
3/4 cup (6 oz) water
A bit of olive/avocado oil (maybe 1 tsp or so)
Add everything to the Instant Pot and stir so it's evenly distributed. Pressure cook on high for 4 minutes and allow for at least a 10 minute natural release. It can certainly sit in there longer than that, helpful in timing your dinner. Once you remove the lid remove to a bowl or tuberware container so the steel pot is easy to clean. Finally, enjoy the amazing, creamy, perfect rice. There will probably be leftovers, it makes a lot (for two people anyway).
I've come a long way this summer and been cooking more than ever. And this stuff has helped me do better than ever with some food I already really liked. Until next time.
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