There’s something nice and wholesome about having the occasional meat free meal.  This meal came about from a desire to boost my vegetable intake and a random craving to use soybeans.  I had bought frozen soybeans from a local Japanese supermarket and wanted to do more than simply serve them as salted edamame beans.  The result was a simple, vibrant, vegetable packed stir fry with ginger for some added kick.

Green vegetable stir fry with tofu and mushrooms

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup unpodded or approximately 3 cups podded frozen soybeans

100 grams fresh shiitake* mushrooms, whole or halved

100 grams oyster* mushrooms, whole or halved

2 cups broccoli florets

175 grams firm tofu (about ½ of a 375 gram packet), cut in chunks

Thumb size piece of ginger, cut into matchstick size pieces

2 teaspoons canola or light olive oil

1 tablespoon salt reduced soy sauce

1 tablespoon mirin

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

Rice to serve

Steps

• Prepare vegetables and tofu as above
• Bring a saucepan of water to boil, add frozen soybeans and cook for about 5 minutes
• Strain soybeans and ‘pop’ from pods (if podded)
• Heat a large frying pan/wok with oil over medium/high heat
• Add broccoli florets and a little splash of water
• Cover with lid and cook for a couple of minutes to slightly soften the broccoli (be careful not to overcook)
• Add soybeans, mushrooms, tofu, ginger and sauces (soy sauce, mirin and oyster)
• Stir fry for a couple of minutes until mushrooms have softened and tofu has heated through
• Serve with rice

Per serve (without rice)

1520 kJ, protein 30 g, total fat 18 g, sat fat 2.2 g, carbs 12 g (sugars 8.5 g)

Note: Half cup of cooked rice has about 500 kilojoules and 25 grams of carbohydrates.

*These products can be rather expensive compared to other vegetables so of course you could swap for any other vegetables that lend themselves to a stir fry.  I was just lucky that the mushrooms happened to be on sale in my local supermarket.