Dinner and recipe – SPAM, potato and cabbage stir-fry with oyster sauce and garlic
Jac went to Denmark to stay with our friend M over new year’s weekend (yes, I’m still catching up on posts). I stayed home and worked on my website. It was during this particular weekend that I chose my blog theme and started really working on the redesign, so it ended up being a bit of a breakthrough weekend for me. :D Whenever Jac is away, I cook very simple meals for myself, spending as little time as possible in the kitchen and creating as little mess and washing-up as possible. This was one of my dinners that weekend – cubes of SPAM, potato and cabbage stir-fry with oyster sauce and garlic, which I ate with rice.
SPAM, potato and cabbage stir-fry with oyster sauce and garlic – the recipe (roughly speaking)
I peeled myself a large potato and cooked it using a potato microwaver. I chopped the cooked potato roughly into cubes. I also chopped some SPAM into cubes, roughly the same size as the potato cubes. I chopped up cabbage. I chopped up a couple of large garlic cloves too, just roughly – I like to leave some of the garlic in big chunks. It doesn’t need to be precise in this dish – it’s just a matter of what you prefer.
First, I fried the SPAM in a little oil in the wok until the cubes started to get crispy-edged. Next, I threw in the garlic, then the cabbage, tossing everything around the wok so the garlic didn’t burn – I continued to stir-fry the garlic, cabbage and SPAM until the cabbage was cooked. For me, that means the cabbage is still fairly crisp to bite, but it no longer tastes raw (you know, that “green” raw vegetable taste? That should be gone!). I threw the potato cubes in last of all, then drizzled oyster sauce over the mixture. I stirred everything well, careful not to break up the potatoes. I cracked a little black pepper over the mixture as well. When everything was heated through, mixed well and the potatoes were nicely coated in brown oyster sauce, the dish was ready to serve. I’d put some rice on to cook in the microwave when I began preparing the stir-fry, so the timing was perfect. Dinner was ready!
It was such a simple meal but so satisfying. I love potatoes with oyster sauce – the potatoes really soak up the oyster sauce flavour and taste so deliciously salty and savoury. You’d think the SPAM would end up too salty tossed in the oyster sauce with the cabbage and potatoes, but it’s just fine and tastes great with the plain white rice. When I first moved out of home I ate potatoes stir-fried in oyster sauce a lot – for me, it fulfilled all the necessary criteria: cheap, easy to prepare, savoury, served hot, yummy!
As I now publish this post, Jac is packing for yet another weekend away in Denmark! She leaves tomorrow morning and will be there for the whole long weekend (Monday 1st March is the Labour Day public holiday here in Western Australia). We went to the supermarket this evening and I stocked up on TFP-weekend-alone-food. I’ve got a bit of a craving for hot dogs, so I got myself a bag of hot dog buns and a pack of wieners. I’m sure that regular readers can reel off TFP’s list of essential alone-food items! >:-P