I bought a can of water chestnuts about a year before trying this recipe. They lay at the back of the cupboard all that time and I kept thinking I should do something with them but never got round to it.
I started sprouting seeds and experimenting with them. I used the sprouts to make a courgette and seed sprouts salad and liked the nutty, crunchy taste they gave. I wondered how to keep that texture in a cooked dish and that led, first to the thought of doing a stir-fry and then, to the notion of flinging the can of water chestnuts into the mix. They're crunchy too, so I figured it would work out well. And you know what? It did. I ended up with a dish that had the texture of a forest floor (and probably as much roughage). And it tasted good too, because I made up a little spicy seasoning paste and stirred it into the pan towards the end.
This is essentially a dead easy and super-quick recipe, but you'll need to have something to grind up the spice mix if you do it my way. You could use ground spices instead of whole and a wee blob of tahina in place of the sesame seeds, I suppose. Here's how it was for me. I made enough for two and it filled my usual frying pan, so if you want to scale up, you'll need a big wok or something similar.
By the way, I only put the courgette in because it was lying around after the salad, but I think it should stay. It goes really well with the rest of the ingredients. If I hadn't had the water chestnuts and had had some broccoli, I would have used that instead. This is a flexible recipe.
1 small can of water chestnuts
A couple of handfuls of bean and/or seed sprouts
1 courgettes
A teaspoon of sesame seed
Half a teaspoon of coriander seed
1 dried red chilli
A splash or two of soya sauce
A couple of squirts of lemon juice
Salt
A couple of teaspoons of sunflower, peanut or walnut oil
Grind the sesame and coriander seeds with the chilli and mix in the soya sauce and lemon juice to make a paste.
Cut the courgettes in half along their length, then slice the halves diagonally. Rinse the water chestnuts and drain them well. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan until it is smoking then throw in the vegetables. Stir fry on a high heat for two or three minutes and stir in a little salt. Stir in the seasoning paste and fry for another minute.
Serve with noodles, rice or a salad.