A Singaporean auntie laughed when I once mentioned my late grandmother’s “gambling rice,” a one-dish meal she concocted that was easy to make — and for busy gamblers to eat — in the little gambling den she ran.
“Gambling rice?” my auntie said. “We called it ‘landuo fan!”
Lazy rice — a name that’s stuck with me ever since.
I’ve been all about lazy food in my kitchen recently — with a book deadline looming, food has become immaterial. (During a recent month of writing at The Studios of Key West in Florida, strong Cuban coffee was my main sustenance some days.)
So recently in Brooklyn, cooking has become all about looking in the fridge and throwing dishes together. Some of these winged-it meals, however, have turned out so much tastier than expected that I’ve started recording the haphazard madness that led to their being.
One of the favorites so far? Chinese roast pork with broccoli in an easy home-made char siu gravy. It’s so easy that dinner took a little over 10 minutes to make. Want the recipe? Just click on through …
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Chinese Roast Pork & Broccoli Stir-Fry with Char Siu Gravy
Ingredients:
- 1 /2 pound Chinese roast pork, sliced
- 4 to 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 pound broccoli crowns, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 TB vegetable or corn oil
- 3/4 to 1 cup chicken broth — or more, depending on how much gravy you’d like
- 1/3 cup hoisin sauce
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup dark soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons Chinese Shaoxing wine (or use dry sherry as a substitute)
- 1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
Mix together gravy ingredients and set aside — this amount above will yield about one cup. You’ll only need about half a cup so you can pack up the rest.
Heat oil in wok over high heat until it’s sizzling, toss in garlic and stir-fry very quickly for about 30 seconds. (You want the garlic to get fragrant but not burned.) Add roast pork, stir-fry for a minute then quickly add broccoli, chicken broth and gravy by the tablespoon, mixing very well. If you want the dish to be less salty, add less gravy to the mixture — some might like as little as a tablespoon or two for a more subtle taste. You want to add a maximum of half a cup.
Then, cover the wok and let it cook for two minutes, or until broccoli is bright green and cooked. Give it a big stir and serve immediately with rice.