Left to my own devices for the third night in a row and out of leftovers, I decided to empty the refrigerator of vegetables and to utilize part of a boneless, skinless chicken breast we had lying around (in the fridge of course!). I started off by creating a very concentrated shiitake stock of about four ounces of actual final stock and three plump mushrooms for use in the stir-fry. While the mushrooms were steeping, I pounded the chicken flat with a rubber mallet shadily in the garage and cut it into small, thin, easy-to-cook strips and put them in a marinade of a by-eye combination of sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, star anise, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, rice wine vinegar, sriracha, and Japanese dried hot peppers. I felt a Korean flair coming on as I added those last two ingredients in amounts that would later prove to make me sweat - this designates my perfect amount of heat in a dish.
- Marinating Chicken
The vegetables are nothing special and are entirely alterable depending on what you have. Remember; I basically just used the only things that we had in the fridge after having cooked for myself two nights ago and without access to a store for the past week. Carrots, cucumber, daikon, green bell pepper, Japanese dried hot peppers, frozen peas, Japanese eggplant, the reconstituted shiitakes, green onions, and loads of collard greens that either needed to be used or tossed. They were put to use yet again - I love my leafy greens, as you know by now. I combined these ingredients in tiers of what needed to be put in the skillet first vs. last and salted each layer. This and the chicken i placed into the fridge to await my later need to feed. I popped some brown rice in the Zojirushi, my love for which grows with each use, and cleaned up.
- The Vegetable Bowl
I think my most creative moment came in substituting the shiitake-vegetable stock for part of the water in cooking the rice, adding only a light earthiness to the already nutty brown rice. This is clearly one of my favorite combinations, as I always seem to use nutty/earthy grains when cooking for myself. I did cook myself quinoa so I would have a choice of nutty/protein-filled quinoa and my classic standby - BR - since I didn't know which I would want when it came time for the stir-fry to be assembled and plated.
- Shiitake Stock
I feel like these experiences prove that I am ready to cook for myself more often: creating, prepping, cooking, and cleaning without considering it out of the ordinary. Of course I had to unload the dishwasher from the previous night before I could begin loading it up yet again! This stir-fry could be easily made vegetarian, since it is simply the method and not the ingredients that make it the dish that it is. Marinate sweet potatoes, potatoes, some other meat substitute with a firmness, or tofu instead of chicken, and just make sure you cook that piece to its desired consistency, remove, add vegetables, and recombine, finishing off with a little bit more veggie/shiitake stock to deglaze the pan and allow for steaming of the leafy greens at the end (especially if using dainty spinach) and cornstarch to allow the dish to develop a glaze that envelopes the different parts, creating dish-wide harmony of a random assortment of ingredients.
- Stirfry and Shiitake Rice - Complete
Ahh yes...finally dinner was served. I just stir-fried the chicken then everything else, then combined it all in that original pan, plating with a topping of Vietnamese chili garlic sauce and some dry-roasted edamame for a little bit of an extra crunch. The sweat-inducing meal was FANTASTIC since I hadn't eaten in several hours: from work's termination to actually getting my lazy ass to the stove! The chili sauce dominated my palate, leaving a tingling in the back of my mouth as the freshly flashed veggies made a pleasurable crunch and the five-spice marinated chicken REALLY packed a Chinese punch. The combination of sweetness from the vegetables and five-spice and the heat made for a pleasant interplay among all flavors and textures. The marinade was as powerful as I had hoped it would be, since the chicken managed to sit in the fridge for about five hours before being removed from the marinade.
Thankfully, the mushroom-infused rice was a starchy coolant for the spicy stir-fry, and you know I'm always thankful for my delicious brown rice anyway. The rice was palpably earthy thanks to the mushroom stock, which drew out the complimentary flavors in the stir-fry, especially when I took alternating bites of each piece. As you can see from the picture, I like my rice on the side to compliment the dish, avoiding a total combination if such varied flavors as heat and earthiness are present in the same dish. I feel as though this separation allowed for a more full experience of each dish on its own. No offense to my parents' preference for a stir-fry on top of and overpowering rice, but when eating it with brown rice, there is no reason to mask and destroy the delicate flavors so laboriously infused into the rice. Of course they also like white basmati rice, whose nuttiness and aromas overpower all but the most intense curries and whose flavor does not need to be separated to allow for complimentary experimentation in the same way as medium grain brown rice. Or maybe I'm just crazy?
Regardless of my rice-love, this meal was wonderful: filling, healthful, and pretty damned good, emptying the fridge for tomorrow's stop at the supermarket for a fill-up. It's an easy dish whose flavors can be catered to the individual cuisiner and his mood. This meal is pretty much my classic standby when I don't really have the option to run to the store, since I can make do with anything...literally.
