Monday, February 11, 2008

Shrimp stirfry with rice and fruit salad

This is an attempt at a healthy, balanced meal that actually tastes good. This recipe should serve 3-4 people. First, I will give you the RDA values that come out of a 2000-calorie portion of this food. Note: the entire recipe has 2000 calories and it serves 3-4 people, therefore these numbers should be divided by 3 or 4. However, the 2000-calorie reference is useful, because it tells you if the food is part of a balanced diet, because percent daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.


Serving size: 2500 grams (3-4 meals)
Calories: 2000 (100 RDA)
Total fat: 14.5g (22.6%)
Saturated fat: 3.1g (10.2%)
Cholesterol: 877mg (290%)
Sodium: 2600g (110%)
Postasium: 3300g (94%)
Total carbohydrates: 350g (117%)
Fiber: 37g (145%)
Sugar: 105g (N/A)
Vitamin A: 90%
Vitamin C: 460%
Calcium: 45%
Iron: 115%
Thiamin: 98%
Riboflavin: 46%
Niacin: 145%
B6: 152%
B12: 110%

Nutritional analysis:
The good: low calories from fat, and even less saturated fat. Excelent source of vitamin C, iron, B12, and K (as well as various other trace minerals). It also provides a good amount of dietary fiber.
The bad: High in cholesterol. One serving will give you a full day's supply. It is also high in sodium (but if a soy sauce with less sodium is chosen, then the problem is solved - but watch out for MSG!), it also lacks any large amounts of calcium.

Overall, this can be one healthy meal in a day. Let's get on to the recipe.

First, the shirmp stirfry:
Ingredients:
450 grams of shrimp (mine were precooked)
4 tablespoons soysauce
4 teaspoons cornstarch or other thickening agent
Two medium onions
1.5 cups of chopped celery
1.3 cups of chopped red pepper
Water
Some oil for stir frying

Instructions:
Mix the cornstarch with a little bit of water to create a slurry, this will be a thickening agent for the sauce. Put the shrimp in a bowl and pour the soy sauce on top. Add the slury and water and mix around a bit. Chop up one onion and add it to the mixture. Let this mixture sit while you prepare other stuff. Chop the remaining onion, the celery and red pepper.
Heat a pan or wok and cook the shrimp mixture a bit (maybe 5 minutes or so, longer if the shrimp was provided raw). Clear that out of the pan and put some oil in the bottom for stirfrying. Make the pan pretty hot (I've read the the oil should be almost at the level where it starts to smoke). Add the vegetable mix to the pan. Stirfry this for one or two minutes (to stirfry means to constantly stir the mix while cooking it. This is not a slow process, but a fast and agressive one). After 2 minutes or so, turn down the heat and add the shrimp mix. And now your done.

The nutrition facts were based on making a total of 800 grams of cooked brown rice (you'll need to start with much less rice than 800 grams!).

The fruit salad is as follows:
1 kiwi
2 small to medium plums
1 mango
1 pear
1 cup of pineapple (I had fresh pineapple on the day I made this).
Chop the fruits into the needed blocks and mix together.

And that's all there is to it. The result is quite yummy and very nutritious. There is also a large diversity of food there, since there are 3 sorts of vegetables and 5 types of fruits.

No comments: