One Flame Chinese - Take-out Made in

Chinese food is one of my favourite cuisines, or several of them - there is, after all, not one single style of Chinese cookery. What I have eaten as Chinese food has changed over time and geography. In the Seventies when the first Chinese takeaways opened in my hometown there was a preponderence of really gloopy stuff, like sweet and sour sauce in which a spoon would stand. Today the dishes available from such places are - often - subtler. In the Gorleston of 1975 Peking Duck never featured on the menu.

I was lucky enough to visit mainland China about a dozen times and Taiwan far more often when I worked in industry, so had the opportunity to try authentic Chinese food. On the mainland I ate in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai, the food in the latter - especially in the countryside beyond the city - very different from the first two. Taiwanese food was different again, perhaps for economic reasons then with meatier dishes to the fore, and fantastic seafood (barbecued chilli whelks one of the best things I ever tried). 

Travels in the USA meant trying their version, again with its own characteristics. I still don't get the point of fortune cookies. 

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I love food made in a Chinese style. So I make my own attempts at it. One of my favourites, and something that qualifies as austerity cooking and one flame cookery, is fried rice, which was the core of last night's meal, and we would not have been deprived had it been all of the meal. 

White rice carefully and lengthily washed in a fine sieve to ensure the grains keep separate later was boiled quickly (boiling water covering it and a half inch more, slow simmer in covered pan for five or six minutes, then taken off the heat and left to steam for another ten minutes). While it steamed finely chopped carrot, red onion, yellow pepper, and a red chilli seeds-and-all were fried gently in rapeseed oil, then the boiled rice was added with about three tablespoons of soy sauce, the mixture stirred together and allowed to fry again very gently for five minutes. Defrosted sweetcorn and peas, and a handful of basics prawns were thrown in, and two brutally crushed garlic cloves to max their impact. A shake of 5-Spice powder completed the flavour enhancement.

I did enough for six, and the three of us ate it. Which when you think about the millions who have to survive on a bowl or two of plain boiled rice a day gives pause for thought.

Another no-flame dish complemented this, a way of using a bit of leftover (uncooked) white cabbage - the Chinese love their brassicas. The thick stalky bits were removed, leaves rolled together like a cigar and chopped very finely, then with a few spoons of boiling water and another of soy added to their bowl along with another smashed garlic clove it was cling-filmed and cooked on medium-high in the microwave for a couple of minutes or so to steam it. Virtuous and delicious. 

Savoury Rice

It sounds like the old racist denial: I am not a vegetarian but.. Vegetarian food tends to be more economical than something served with a slab of expensive meat, and I try to cook something vegetarian at least once possibly twice a week. Don't we all? How virtuous. Cheap, simple and somehow beautiful to look at this is a take on Chinese fried rice - on my business travels in South East Asia in a previous life I was jokingly chided for requesting this at a meal, but it's something I really enjoy if made well. And for three of us I reckon the cost is less than £2. The biggest cost is the two peppers so it could be even cheaper substituting another carrot and/or a red onion to keep the colour thing going.

Boil enough rice for everyone and then some left over (the next day or even the day after rice kept in the fridge makes a great basis for a packed-lunch salad). Washing it well before cooking helps the grains separate which is pleasing to the eye and the fork, though it reduces the nutritional value a little.

In a wide and deep non-stick frying pan heat some vegetable oil over a medium flame and throw in a finely chopped onion or even two, a carrot in tiny dice, and a pepper likewise - ideally two of different colours. I buy a pack of the miss-shape 'basic' peppers every week from Sainsbury's, a bargain and no different in terms of taste or freshness. Cook until the onion is transparent, then add a chopped clove of garlic. Crumble in the rice and stir so it gets coated in oil and mixed with the veg. Defrost a handful of frozen peas and/or sweetcorn and add them, mixing into the rice near the end of cooking - they need to warm through not cook. Flavour the rice according to what you have and what you fancy, but soy sauce is all but a must: one or two of the following is adequate - not please more than that: 5-spice powder, sesame oil, cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, turmeric, even curry powder if push comes to shove. Be gentle with the spicing, don't overwhelm the rice.

If you need some protein a few thin strips of bacon is good, or some small prawns. As with so many dishes you can play tunes with this, one of the best being turning it into mushroom fried rice (which means you can do without one or even both peppers) by adding near the end of cooking half a dozen or so thinly sliced mushrooms sauteed gently in another pan. Tip in their juice of course.