An Eggroll Would Sure Be Good Right About Now

Every Chinese New Year, Marc's (a NEOH chain of discount stores) gets in all kinds of good stuff. Bok Choy, Napa Cabbage, all kinds of different tofu's, egg roll and won ton wrappers, etc. And every year, I must buy the Bok Choy. This year was no exception.

Unfortunately, it was a touch past its prime when I bought it so I really needed to use it up fast. I decided to make a stir fry. I had chicken tenderloins in the freezer, the bok choy, some sweet peppers, carrots, scallions, rice... ok. I can throw this all into a pretty decent stir fry. I started with the bok choy, cleaned and chopped.


Then I put it in my biggest frying pan (because believe it or not, I do not have a wok. I think I need to remedy that) with some olive oil. I probably should have used veg oil, but I'm so used to reaching for the olive oil, so I grabbed it. I let the bok choy cook for a few minutes then added some chicken broth to the pan so it could simmer.



Then it was time to chop up everything else.... carrots, peppers, chicken, scallions.




And in the meantime I got the rice cooking. You may or may not remember that I tend to use jasmine rice. I put 2 Tablespoons of unsalted butter in the bottom of the pan and saute 1 cup of rice with 1/4 cup of slivered almonds. After the rice and almonds saute for a few minutes (before they brown), I add 2 cups of chicken broth and let simmer until it's done and all the liquid is absorbed. After it's done I added three chopped scallions to the rice.



In the other pan, the bok choy is simmering away with the carrots and peppers (add more chicken broth if the pan starts to dry out). In another pan (ugh, too many pans!) I am browning the chopped chicken tenderloins. When they are just browned on both sides, I add one Tablespoon of brown sugar and 2 Tablespoons of white vinegar to the pan and let it cook with the chicken for a few minutes. This gives a nice sweet and sour flavor to the chicken.

Then put the chicken in the pan with the veggies and simmer with about a cup of chicken broth.


From here it doesn't really need to simmer much longer. Just until the chicken is completely cooked. Then add the finished rice to the veg/chicken. If there is still a lot of broth, you may want to thicken your sauce with a slurry of one Tablespoon of corn starch and 2-3 Tablespoons of water, stirred together. You don't have to mix the rice and veg/chicken though. You can just serve the veg/chicken over the rice if you prefer. But I like to have my rice sauced too, so I mix them.

And enjoy!


And doh! I realized today that I had ginger root in my freezer! That would have been a nice addition to this stir fry! Urgh.