Here is a great recipe when you’ve got a Chinese food craving, but it’s diet day and you need something low in calories.
This fried rice & veg dish is less than 250 calories per serving and tastes great. It’s quite a generous portion for the low calorie count (that’s a cereal bowl in the photo), but as you can see, it’s more veg than rice. That’s because rice is a whopping 90 calories per 25g raw rice (which isn’t a lot of rice). I like to add it though, as I find that adding a few carbs to a meal makes it more satisfying. You can easily eliminate the rice add more tofu if you prefer: another 100g tofu and 1/2 teaspoon oil to fry it in is 96 calories.
With a variety of vegetables and a bit of fried tofu, a tasty sauce, plus spring onion and coriander (cilantro in American-speak), this scrumptious dish is lacking in nothing but calories.
Enjoy!
FRIED VEG WITH RICE & TOFU
INGREDIENTS
- 25 g raw rice, cooked ahead and refrigerated (70g cooked weight)
- 3/4 teaspoon groundnut oil, divided
- 50 g slice of tofu
- 50 g small broccoli florets
- 50 g white mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 50 g baby corn, thinly sliced
- 50 g courgette, cut into matchsticks
- 25 g celery, thinly sliced
- 25 g peeled & finely diced carrots
- 1 teaspoon grated fresh gingerroot
- 1 small spring onion
- 1 Tablespoon minced fresh cilantro (coriander)
SAUCE
- 1/2 Tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon vegetarian stir-fry sauce (a.k.a. vegetarian oyster sauce)
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1/16 teaspoon sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
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Brush tofu with 1/4 teaspoon groundnut oil. Heat a heavy cast-iron skillet and saute tofu on both sides until lightly browned. Cut into crosswise strips.
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Stir together sauce ingredients and set aside.
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Blanch broccoli florets for 1 minute, drain and rinse with cold water and set aside.
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Heat a cast iron wok on medium heat. When hot, add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon groundnut oil and a pinch of salt. Add ginger and cook for 30 seconds. Add mushrooms, cook for one minute. Add broccoli, baby corn, courgette (zucchini), celery and carrots and stir-fry for one minute. Add rice and stir-fry for five minutes, until hot.
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Pour sauce ingredients over and mix well. Off the heat.
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Add spring onion and coriander (cilantro) and mix.
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Serve immediately.