One of my favorite lunches to make (for myself) are grain bowls. It’s essentially a mishmash of a protein, some veggies and maybe shrooms, and a grain. Or to put it bluntly, it’s ang mo cai png lah. 😂
I finally found some bulgur wheat for cheap on my trip to Sydney and of course I hauled some back. Yes, people travel and do luxury or fashion shopping, I go to Woolies.
I had some leftover supermarket rotisserie chicken today, and that was the perfect excuse to put my new grains to use. This grain bowl contains: shredded roast chicken, Brussels sprouts, celery, oyster mushrooms, and bulgur wheat that I dressed in a faux beurre blanc sauce (more on that below).
For my grain bowls, I cook each ingredient separately, then dress them together at the end. It is actually less work than it sounds, in that I use a single technique and one pan to do the cooking consecutively. For all the veggies and shrooms, it’s just olive oil, salt, pepper - the key is in the correct application of heat to extract maximum flavors. I don’t wash the pan in between as it’s just oil, but I do wipe down with kitchen paper towel to remove any bits of food that’s stuck to avoid burning them in the next round of cooking.
I start with Brussels sprouts. Olive oil in a hot pan, throw in shredded Brussels sprouts and toss to coat thoroughly in oil. Then let it sit on high heat, and stirring occasionally only to prevent burning but you do want the leaves to brown - it’ll smell nutty and you know it’s going alright. Once done, remove all into a large mixing bowl.
Then it’s the celery. This doesn’t need browning but you do want to cook it just enough so it isn’t too raw but also not too done such that it’s soft and soggy. So this is pretty quickly done on high heat - almost like a Chinese stir fry, except to keep this dish dry, I don’t add water as there’s already a bit of moisture from the celery itself that would evaporate and lightly steam/cook the veggie. Dump into mixing bowl once done.
For the shrooms, use whatever you like. I find oyster and maitake mushrooms to be more satiating than button mushrooms. Like the Brussels sprouts, what matters most in cooking delicious mushrooms is high heat, lots of oil, generous salting, and resist mucking about in the pan and just let them sit to brown nicely. Rake them over occasionally to prevent burning. Again, they go into the mixing bowl once cooked.
Because my leftover chicken were refrigerated, I threw them into the pan to heat up gently. As the pan is already oiled and the chicken skin has fats, I don’t add oil at this stage. Remove when warm - be careful to not overcook and dry them out. I generally keep the heat on low for this stage.
While I was doing the shrooms, I also concurrently started cooking the bulgur wheat. I used 1/2 cup for 4 servings as I don’t like a lot of carbs - feel free to use more if you’d like. Follow instructions on the packet - mine said boil in water for 10 mins and drain. You just need to ensure the grain is cooked before you start the sauce.
Now the sauce. I call it a faux beurre blanc because while I used a technique typical of beurre blanc, I thin it significantly so that it’s more of a dressing than a thick creamy sauce, and I keep the shallots for texture. In a true beurre blanc sauce for seafood, the shallots are strained out so you get a smooth velvety cream. Anyway, away from the French kitchen and back here in reality — as there were some bits of chicken skin stuck to the pan from the stage before this, I deglazed it with some sherry vinegar, add a little bit of water, then added finely diced shallots to sauté. When the shallots are near done, turn the heat down super low, then add cubes of cold butter (one cube at a time, not all at once), and whisk gently until you get a thin sauce. If it’s too thick, just add a bit of water to thin it. Once done, throw in the cooked bulgur wheat to soak up the dressing, and add some chopped chives or parsley too (optional). Remember to salt the sauce especially if you butter is unsalted.
After this, it’s just a matter of mixing all the cooked ingredients well in the big bowl, then serve and enjoy. The butter sauce made this just decadent enough to obviously not qualify as a healthy meal, but enough to make this more than a boring, everyday plate of grub. The crunch and freshness of the celery also plays off well against the nutty Brussels sprouts and almost meat-like oyster shrooms. All in all a balanced meal that doesn’t feel mundane.
The health conscious ones among you might ask: can I use a different dressing and skip the butter sauce? Absolutely! My original plan was in fact to do a simple shallot vinaigrette but then I saw the butter in the fridge and that plan flew away. 😅
I made enough for 4 servings. But I’m the only one at home who eats like this, so it’s one for today and 3 more as packed lunches that I can take to work. I froze one and will see how that holds up.
Is this cheaper to DIY? Yes and no. It still costs me almost $5 per portion in ingredients to make this, so it isn’t a cheap lunch, and that’s why retail charges you $15 for a bowl. But I do this because I get to eat exactly what I want, and it is far tastier, and mostly because I do enjoy cooking and simple meals are all I have time for these days.
