Colorful Chard and Chicken Stir Fry--a Concept Recipe for Stir Fries

Subtitle: The Stir Fry as a Concept for Simple Farm Share Suppers

Swiss chard, carrots, radish and onion cooked with chicken strips and seasoned with Asian flavors. Can be served over rice or rolled up in Chinese pancakes.

One of the most common ways I use the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to fix supper for the family rarely appears here--a simple stir fry. Stir fries in my kitchen are one skillet meals into which I try to cram as many stray vegetables as possible. I'm not getting fancy with seasonings or sauces, it's just basic food that gets vegetables out of the farm share crate and into our family. I happened to get some photos of one, a rare occurrence, so I'm sharing the idea today.

Last week I made a stir fry using up dribs and drabs of what was available, no photos or anything, and got raves from the menfolk [my daughter was off in Canada pouring maple syrup onto pea soup in a sugar shack. And practicing French]. I was kicking myself for not documenting how I'd made it, so I'll be making that one again, deliberately. It had bok choy, smoked sausage, spring onions and roasted potatoes.

A few Notes:

• When I make a stir fry using the quick cooking greens from the farm share [Swiss chard, bok choy, tatsoi, pak choy, spinach, cabbages--NOT turnip greens, mustard greens, or kale in this case] I separate the leaves from their stems, chop the stems up, and cook the stems first with the onions.

• If I've got root vegetables to use I'll shred or finely dice them and add in along with the onions and stems.

• I typically include a protein in my stir fries--a chopped chicken breast or two, some ground meat, scrambled eggs or a fried egg on top. A piece of diced chorizo or smoked sausage provides a ton of flavor with very little effort.

• We usually have a starch with our stir fries. This is typically rice, but can also be potatoes, tortillas, Chinese pancakes (boughten** Mu Shu wrappers), bulgur or couscous. If you're going to have a separate starch like rice, make sure to start that first so it's ready.

For other recipes using Swiss chard, please see my Swiss chard Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, an ever-expanding [thanks to generous links from my fellow food bloggers] collection of ideas for what to do with your farm share. But wait, there's more! I've got a Greens Board on Pinterest. I share recipes on my FB page even. Wanna know how to Use This Blog? Click here.

**boughten. In preparation for a trip West to include sites from the Little House on the Prairie series I've been re-reading the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I love reading how Pa built a house using boughten boards and a boughten door. I buy my mu shu wrappers in the freezer section of Asian grocery stores.

Colorful Chard and Chicken Stir Fry

½ cup chicken broth

½ teaspoon corn starch

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 to 2 teaspoons olive oil or cooking oil of your choice

2 cups chopped chicken breast (raw, from one massive BSCB)

1 large bunch Swiss chard which was about 1½ cups chopped stems and 2-3 cups sliced leaves

½ cup chopped spring onions (white and light green parts) or the onion of your choice*

1 cup shredded root vegetables such as radish and/or carrot

to serve--hot cooked rice, Chinese pancakes, hoisin sauce if desired

In a small bowl or 1 cup measuring cup, mix chicken broth, corn starch, and soy sauce together with a whisk. Set aside. 

Preheat a large (12 inch) skillet over medium high heat. Grab a cover for it--a lid, a piece of foil [not a plastic cutting board my darling son]. 

When the skillet is hot, add 1 teaspoon oil and the chicken. Cook 5-8 minutes, flipping once, until the chicken is lightly browned on both sides. Transfer to a plate. 

Add in the second teaspoon of oil if necessary, and when it's hot add the chard stems, the onions and shredded root vegetables. Stir to coat the vegetables with oil, then cook for 3 to 5 minutes until they start to soften. Add in the chard leaves, stir to combine, then add back in the cooked chicken. 

Once everything is thoroughly mixed together in the skillet, push it to the edges to make room in the middle as shown above. 

Pour the chicken broth mixture into the center of the skillet. When it begins to bubble stir the vegetables from the edges into the center so that everything gets coated with the sauce. 

Cover and let cook for 3 minutes until heated through. 

Remove from heat and serve over rice or wrapped up in pancakes with a dab of hoisin sauce.