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Monday night was one of those where I only had a few staple ingredients left in the cupboard, but just could not be bothered with the faff of popping somewhere for more stuff to make my dinner more interesting.
So, it resulted in the plan of a bung everything I had (which wasn’t really that much) into a wok meal. These were the not so carefully selected ingredients:
After carefully preparing all these ingredients (i.e. roughly chopping), it wasn’t long before two diced onions, a few chopped cloves of garlic and a good dollop of olive oil were in the wok. When the garlic turned golden, the three peppers could be chucked in.
In about five minutes time, I added a good handful of sugar snap peas, and topped up the level of olive oil as it was all starting to look a bit dry. While this was cooking, it gave me time to put the kettle on. I put in about a litre – just enough for making the stock, plus a quick cup of tea.
After I had made myself a cuppa, I added a couple of stock cubes, a teaspoon of turmeric and half a teaspoon of paprika to a jug. I could then add the rest of the boiled water, and stirred it well. I poured in a good glug of white wine, and stirred again – just to make sure it was all mixed together.
When the peppers and peas were done, I added the rice to the wok. A little trick I got from my dad is to make sure this is done before you add the stock. Stir the rice well into the mixture so it absorbs all of the garlicky and oniony olive oil. It will also help the rice to be distributed well throughout the whole wok. After a few stirs when the rice has absorbed all the moisture, I slowly added the stock. I then kept mixing the rice until all the stock was in the pot.
Once this was done, all that was left to do was put a lid on the wok, and leave it for about 20-30 minutes. I kept checking on it, and gave it a little stir every time the rice started to stick to the bottom of the wok. When most of the stock had been absorbed by the rice, I checked to see if the rice was done. I added a little more boiling water when it wasn’t quite done, as the level of stock was too low.
This turned out to be a decent meal for the few ingredients I had in the cupboard, but it wasn’t brilliant. It seemed to taste a little bland, but it was at least very easy to eat. There was so much left over though, that I ended up having it for lunch for days. This worked out well, with the meal actually tasting pretty good cold, especially in between some bread and butter to make it into a sandwich. I only did this so that it would be easier to transport to campus – but I would do it again even if I were home.
I think part of the problem with the meal was that it was a little boring. It could easily been livened up through the addition of some frozen veg. I think any type would have contributed well. Some meat could have been added at the beginning – perhaps chicken, bacon or white fish - or all three if you’re feeling extravagant! And then you could use chicken stock or fish stock depending on what kind of taste you fancy.
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