It was a wet and miserable Monday in Dublin today heralding the onset of winter. Like so many others, I got soaked on the way from the bus and the challenge when I got in was to throw together a quick and easy dinner that would warm us all up and use up leftover vegetables. I’m also trying to get into the habit of having one day a week when we eat vegetarian food so, taking a cue from Claire and Mike in Australia, Meatless Monday it is.
When we visited Shan’s family in Xinjiang, China, I was surprised to discover how prevalent “Irish” vegetables, such as carrot, parsnip and cabbage, were in their diet so it didn’t seem inappropriate to include them in a chow mein. The recipe below is based on the Winter Vegetable Stir-fry recipe Claire sent me from Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg Everyday – see Variations on Shan’s Xinjiang Spaghetti.
I hadn’t meant to do a blog post today but this made up recipe worked so well that I thought I had better capture it while I can still remember what I did!
By the way when I went into the Asia Market to pick up some Shaoxing rice wine today, a very nice Chinese lady gave me a tip. She said to always swirl the rice wine around the sides of the wok rather than mixing it in, unless you are using it as a marinade. That way it flavours the dish correctly and the alcohol burns off. Apart from the useful information, this was the first time any of the staff in there have engaged me in conversation. A breakthrough. Yeah!
Irish Winter Vegetable Chow Mein
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