My Lunch Can Beat Up Your Lunch!

Bento Recipes: Vegetable & Seafood Stuff

 
   
 

Back to the
Recipes
or the
Photos

  I

This was inspired by the "seafood delight" I see a lot in Chinese buffets. ("Inspired by" because the recipe wanders off from that point as opposed to being a serious effort to emulate the dish.) "Vegetable & Seafood Stuff" is a fairly flexible recipe, and those are handy when you want to use up what's in your fridge rather than going out to the store.

What you need (or what I suggest):

    1 cup of broccoli florets and stem stars
    1 carrot, cut into thin slices with a vegetable peeler
    1 stalk of celery, cut into thin "U"s
    1/2 small onion, cut into bite-sized pieces
    1 leaf of cabbage, cut into bite-sized pieces
    1/2 cup of baby corn
    1 medium zucchini squash, cut into coins
    1/2 can of water chestnuts
    4 oz of artificial crab meat, cut into bite-sized pieces
    vegetable oil for frying
    hot water

Other items that I'll try in future batches include lotus root, bamboo shoots, button mushrooms, shrimp, and whatever else occurs to me. Add and subtract items, and tweak amounts, according to your taste.

First, heat up a deep pan to medium high, put in enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom, and add in the "hard" (broccoli, carrot) and "flavorous" (onion, celery) items.  Mix around well to give them a decent oil coating and stir-fry them until the broccoli turn bright green and the carrot begins to soften. Then add in the other items and enough hot water to cover the bottom to a 1/4" depth. Bring this to a boil, then cover and simmer. Stir it up every 5 minutes, checking the various items (broccoli and squash especially) for doneness. Drain and serve over rice or noodles, or by itself.

I've also added cornstarch to the water to thicken it. However, as I ended up draining the liquid before serving, I didn't include it in the recipe, but you might like to try it. I just eyeballed it, stirring in a bit here and there (maybe a teaspoon total) into the water after it came to a boil and letting it thicken while simmering.