theFIREstarter

Today we are going to be making a quick, easy, and healthy stir fry recipe. This is a perfect meal to brush up on some of the efficient skills you learnt in Bad Ass Cookery Class 101 as there is a lot of veg to cut up. Remember, keep it rough and ready, your taste buds won’t know the difference! Please note I have changed the name of my recipe series from “Frugal Food Friday” for two reasons, the first is that I am far too unorganised to consistently post a cooking post every Friday, the second is that “Bad Ass Cooking Class” sounds approxiamately 300 times cooler. So this is what we are going to be calling it from now on, I hope everyone is ok with that! I will still try to post one recipe per week on average but it won’t always be on a Friday (as you probably have already gathered). Enough talk already! On with the deliciousness!

Pork Stir Fry Ingredients

Bask in the natural glow of healthiness! (Also 10 internet points if you can spot the missing key ingredient)

To make four portions:

400g Pork (if not pre-cut is more expensive then buy chops and cut them up, I got these on offer) – £2.39

3 carrots – £0.20

Half a leek (or one white onion) – £0.15

One red onion – £0.12

Cherry tomatoes – £0.30

Mange Tout – £0.50

White cabbage – £0.15

2 cloves garlic – £0.05

Generous splash of soy sauce – £0.05

1 tsp wholegrain mustard (or any kind you have laying around) – £0.05

Pork stock / cube – £0.10

Splash of olive oil – £0.05

Dry egg noodles – £0.40

(You can use any kind of noodles you like or rice instead of course!)

To Season: Mixed herbs, Salt and pepper

Optional ingredients to add a bit of spice/mix it up a bit
Jalapeno peppers – £0.10
Splash of chilli infused cooking oil – £0.10
A few teaspoons of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and pine nuts – £0.30

Cost per person: £1.28

Note: This turned out to be actually quite a meaty stir fry in my opinion. You could easily get the cost per person down and make it slightly healthier just by adding slightly more veg to bulk it out to a 6 person recipe. This should get it to under £1 per serving.

Other Note: There is paprika in the ingredients picture which I didn’t use, and soy sauce missing which I did. Extra points if you spotted both of those!

Pork Stir Fry Cooking Method

1. Chop up all the ingredients. This should take no more than 10 minutes. If you need to cut up the pork do so in thin strips so it cooks nice and quickly. A good stir fry is all about cooking everything on a high heat for a short amount of time. Pour the oil(s) in a wok/pan and heat for 30 seconds while you fill and boil the kettle.

2. Fry off the leak and onions in the oil(s) for 2-3 minutes on a fairly high heat, tossing them about regularly with your trusty wooden spoon, until the onions have at least gone soft. I prefer it when some of them are starting to char a bit – adds more flavour 🙂

3. Splash in your soy sauce then add the pork and cook for another 2-3 minutes while stiring regulalry, until the outsides of the meat are all definitely cooked (no pink bits left on view!)

4. Chuck all the rest of the veg into the pan. Pour the water from the kettle into a pan and put in the noodles. Set the timer for 3 minutes. Stir all the veg into the stir fry while waiting for the noodles to cook.

5. Put the herbs, and jalapenoes and seeds on top if you have them, and give another quick stir

6. Drain the noodles, serve them up and put a generous portion of your stir fry on top.

The Finished Article!

7. EAT!

This stir fry has a real meaty, tasty, savoury flavour to it with a nice kick in the tail as well if you add the optional extras! Considering it is something I threw together on a whim when I got home late from work last week I am pretty happy with the recipe 🙂

You can of course modify the veg and meat to suit your personal tastes but this combination worked pretty darn well in my opinion and I will be making it again.

As I have probably mentioned I love Thai food so the next Stir Fry recipe I put up on here will most definitely be of the Thai variety. It might take slightly longer (like 5 minutes I am guessing) and require a couple of extra exotic ingredients as I’ve never really cooked a proper Thai stir fry before, but if you have a small bit of extra time I think it will be worth it if you like that sort of thing.

Until next time, happy cooking!

If anyone tries this or has any recommendations to add to the recipe please let me know in the comments what you thought of it!