This quick rice cake stir fry is full of fresh vegetables, mushrooms, and is lightly sauced with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. We love it with choi sum, garlic chives, and eryngi mushrooms but you can mix and match your produce to suit your budget or what’s in season. The hardest part is washing and chopping your produce. It cooks in less than 15 minutes!
You can serve this as your main dish and add any protein you like to it. Just add an extra tablespoon of oyster sauce and soy sauce if you add 1 pound of protein. Or serve it with leftover protein from a prior meal to use up what you have.
The Kid and Vegetable Dilemma
Getting kids to eat greens and other vegetables can be hard because every time you cook it for them it tastes a little different. Kids like packaged snacks and other processed foods because it’s the same EVERY SINGLE TIME so there are no surprises.
I used to think avoiding most sugar was better for kids. However, my son would refuse to take more than a bite of the different vegetables I would serve him because he wasn’t in love with the flavor. Now I realize that I would rather him eat the vegetables in a saucy stir fry so he can see them and grow to love vegetables rather than have to hide it in his food. If some of you have been hiding vegetables in the muffins or desserts like I have, experiment with some tasty stir fry dishes and you’ll be pleasantly surprised if your kid eats up at least one new veggie!
Brown Rice Cakes? Really?
There are so many types of rice cakes in Asian cultures. A favorite of ours are sliced Korean rice cakes (tteok) because of its fun chewy texture. It’s less sticky than Japanese mochi so it is much easier for younger kids to eat. The Korean rice cakes soak up any flavor that its’ cooked in. This rice cake is traditionally used in soup as good luck for the New Year. But why wait until then?
Brown rice cakes do not seem as common as the tteok traditionally made with white rice. I was able to find brown rice cakes at HMart. The brown rice cakes have a little more fiber and protein than the white rice version. If you see these at the store, pick up a bag and give these addicting little rice cakes a try!
Brown Rice Cake Stir Fry
Equipment
- 1 chef's knife
- 1 large cutting board
- 1 5 Quart pan or 11" chicken fryer
Ingredients
- 1 pound sliced brown rice cakes
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion thinly sliced
- 1 bunch choi sum chopped, leaves and stems separated (about 4 cups)
- 4 ounces eryngi mushrooms sliced
- 12 garlic cloves diced (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
- 1 inch fresh ginger grated or chopped finely (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
- 1 ½ tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- ¼ bunch garlic chives cut into 1" pieces (about ¼ cup)
Instructions
- Rinse and/or soak brown rice cakes per package instructions.
- Heat pan to medium high heat. Add olive oil to the pan.
- Add onions, choi sum stems, and mushrooms to the pan and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until onions soften to your liking, stirring occasionally.
- Add rice cakes, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and oyster sauce to the pan. Stirring frequently so the rice cakes do not stick to the pan, cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the rice cakes are well coated.
- Add choi sum leaves and garlic chives to the pan, stir, and cook for one minute. If the rice cakes start to stick to the bottom of the pan, add 2 tablespoons of water to create some steam and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen the rice cakes and little bits of flavor!
