Vegetarian Stir Fry

The chunky wok / stew strips brown easily and cook in minutes

People often ask me if it isn’t boring to be a vegetarian. I always answer them honestly: It’s anything but...

I remember during the hippie era in the sixties, there was a “weird” guy at our school who was a vegetarian. He wore his black wavy hair longer than regulations allowed, always had a far-away look in his eyes and hardly ever spoke; when he did, his speech was laced with expressions like: “hey man, it's groovy, dude”. We were too nervous to ask him what he ate (modern vegetarian fare, as we know it today, was non-existent) but we heard via the grapevine that all he ate was mushy cereal called muesli!

These days the supermarket shelves and freezers display a great variety of vegetarian products. I, for one, always buy the protam meat alternative, which is a specially developed vegetable protein derived from natural ingredients. I regularly enjoy hamburgers made with protam burger patties, hot dogs with protam Vienna’s and or braai (BBQ) sausages under the same brand name.

Last week I found a packet of protam chunky wok or stew strips. If I didn’t know any better, once cooked, I could have been conned into thinking they were beef strips from the butchers.

All the above products contain no meat, milk or dairy, no preservatives, no colorants and no cholesterol.

A healthy, colourful and tasty selection of stir fry vegetables

Over the Easter weekend, I was alone after having many visitors in and around the house for the past six weeks. I decided to treat myself on Thursday night and have stir fry for dinner.

Once the vegetables are done to your taste, add the chunky wok/stew strips and the cooked rice

A truly oriental meal

The following recipe is my own creation. You can add fried chicken strips or chunks of pork sausages to turn it into a meaty meal.

Vegetarian Stir Fry
Serves 4
190g vegetarian chunky wok or stew strips
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into strips
3 – 4 courgettes, topped and tailed and cut into strips
150g mushrooms, stalks removed and sliced
I large onion, peeled and sliced
½ green pepper, deseeded, cut into rings
½ cup frozen peas
30 ml olive oil
1 cup Wild and Brown rice

Boil rice in lightly salted water, until soft. Drain and set aside
Heat half the oil in a wok and fry vegetarian strips for 6 minutes
Remove from pan and set aside
Heat the rest of the oil and fry the onions until transparent
Add carrots, courgettes, mushrooms and green pepper
Add peas; stir fry for about 10 minutes
Add a little hot water to prevent vegetables sticking to pan
Simmer until vegetables are soft and all liquid is reduced
Add chunky strips and rice and carefully turn over to mix
Heat through gently and serve with Soy sauce