Chinese Vegetable Stir-Fry Recipe to Accompany a Main Meal

Have you ever wondered how to make those delicious vegetable dishes that are served up in Chinese restaurants as a side dish to accompany your main meal?

Here is a delicious Chinese vegetable stir-fry recipe that tastes out of this world.

Believe it or not, those side dishes can take longer to cook and prepare than the main dishes, but the nice thing is that they keep well in the refrigerator for a few days, so if your family eat a lot of Chinese food, then your stir-fry vegetables can be used up in no time, if not all eaten at once.

However, we are only talking minutes, and it is well worth the effort of going that extra mile if you wish to serve a complete Chinese feast for your family.

I find that vegetable stir-fry dishes go especially well with sweet and sour recipes.

Your local Asian food shop should be able to provide you with the ingredients needed.

• 2 dried lotus roots, soaked overnight in water
• 30ml/2 tbsp oil
• 75g/3oz beansprouts
• ½ red pepper, seeded and finely chopped
• ½ green pepper, seeded and finely chopped
• ½ spring onion, chopped
• 1 head Chinese cabbage, finely chopped
• 75g/3oz dried Chinese black mushrooms, soaked for 1 hour in warm water
• 1 courgette, thinly sliced
• 100g/4oz frozen peas
• 30g/2 tbsp cashew nuts, finely chopped
• 5g/1 tsp sugar
• 30ml/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 430ml/¾ pint chicken stock
• salt and pepper

1. Cook the lotus root is lightly salted boiling water for 20 minutes. Slice thinly.

2. Heat the oil in the wok (or frying pan), then stir-fry your vegetables in the following order.

• beansprouts
• peppers
• onions
• Chinese cabbage
• lotus root
• mushrooms
• courgette
• peas
• cashew nuts

3. Stir in the sugar, soy sauce and stock.

4. Add seasoning, and gently simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

5. Drain some of the sauce off, and serve the vegetables.

The vegetables should take about 10 minutes to prepare, plus you will need another 35 minutes of cooking time.

You can also, if you have time to spare, cook each vegetable separately at the start, before adding them all in together. This apparently tastes even better!

If you have no cashew nuts, you can exchange them for any other type of nut, including walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds.

For more variation, you can also add in sliced carrots, sugar-snap peas, broccoli florets or corn on the cob.

If you try out and enjoy this wonderful Chinese vegetable stir-fry recipe, please comment below.