Better than Takeout: Fried Rice and Stir Fries

Fried rice and stir fries are those sorts of dishes that can be as varied as the veggies at the grocery store or your own backyard garden. That's part of the beauty; they can be made with anything you have on hand.

Our friends came over for a meal and we decided to make a complete Chinese Take-out style feast, full of photo-ops to share with you. I never quite know what will go into our stir fry until I get to the grocery store. This week, we found a package of multi-colored bell peppers for an amazing price, as well as carrots, onions, and garlic. I also found cans of Coconut Milk on sale, which would form the basis of my sauce.

I started out preparing the ingredients. For us, that meant first cooking up the rice according to directions. Normally I use brown rice, but someone blessed us with a box of food, and in it was a nice big bag of white rice, so I'm using that. You can use whatever kind of rice you want. This also works especially well with leftover cooked rice.

I began preparing the other ingredients:

For the Stir Fry, I sliced chicken breast into thin strips. This is done easiest with a pair of kitchen shears, with the chicken still slightly frozen.


I had my daughter slice up the peppers (about 5 of them since there was 14 people all together over for dinner!), carrots, and onions.


For the Fried Rice, I sliced 1 chicken breast into small cubes, as well as 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, and 1 onion (all coarsely chopped).


I only have one wok, though I had to use it for both dishes. I decided to make the Egg Roll Filling first, then allow it to cool while making fried rice, then, after transferring the fried rice to a bowl, I prepared the Stir Fry.

The Fried Rice

I began by heating the wok over high heat. I didn't wipe out the bits of remaining egg roll filling, so as to include it in the fried rice too. I poured in 1T of vegetable oil (I am actually using that garlic vegetable oil my friend got me for Christmas! Mmmmm), and a teaspoon of sesame oil for flavor. Next, I added 1t of fresh ginger (dried also works), and 2-3 sliced cloves of garlic.



I stirred well to blend the flavors, and then added the meat.

I stir-fried the meat, moving it constantly in the hot wok until it was completely cooked.


Next, I added the chopped vegetables, stir frying them as well. I also had some leftover sliced almonds which I added to the vegetables.


Once the carrots were tender, I added the rice, on large scoop at a time, stir-frying to blend it well before adding more rice. I seasoned with soy sauce while stirring i the rice. I added enough rice to fill the wok before turning it off, and transferring the fried rice to a different bowl.


The Stir Fry
I wiped the wok clean of any remaining fried rice before preparing my stir fry. I began, as with the fried rice, by heating the wok, adding both vegetable oil and sesame oil, and seasoning the oil with ginger. I also added a half teaspoon of Oriental Five Spices (a spice blend which you will find in the Oriental foods aisle of your grocery store).



I added the meat a little bit at a time, stir frying each batch until cooked, then pushing it up onto the sides of the wok before adding more meat to the center to stir fry. In several small batches, I cooked all of the meat well.


I like my vegetables, especially peppers, to be crisp-tender, so I added them after I prepared the sauce, letting them steam instead of stir frying them. I began the sauce by adding 2 cans of coconut milk. I don't use this often as it is very high in fat, but it is nice to use for special occasions (happy new year!). I also normally don't make quite so much sauce, but it helps the meal to spread when you are having 14 over for dinner! I also added 1 cup of chicken broth to the coconut milk, and let it simmer.

Once the sauce was simmering, I stirred in 1 cup of cold water mixed with 1T of corn starch to thicken it.

After the sauce had thickened, we did a quick taste test, and decided it needed more seasonings, so we added ginger, curry powder, cilantro, chives, Soy Sauce, and a little bit more Oriental Five Spices. We like our food spicy. Your sauce should be seasoned to your tastes, using similar spice blends.


I added the vegetables, as well as 2 sliced green onions, and the rest of the bag of almonds I had in the pantry. I turned off the heat, put the lid on my wok, and allowed the vegetables to steam without stirring. We had about 15 minutes before we were going to eat yet, and that provided enough time for the vegetables to become crisp tender, and yet remain warm.