Monday, April 5, 2010

Quick and Painless...

..and good for you too! ( I think : / )













Fried Rice! 
Who doesn't like fried rice?
Me? I love making fried rice with left-overs from the previous night.
(or the night before that, or the night before that...you get my point.)

Here is  what I threw together for brunch this after noon.

Rice
Corn, Peas & Spinach
A couple eggs.

No big deal right?

Take your left over rice, and in the rice pot mix these ingredients in.

Sesame Seed Oil
Shoyu (Soy Sauce)
Garlic Powder
Ginger Powder
Pepper or White Pepper
Salt (optional)

Because I always make fried rice, I didn't measure any of these ingredients and did everything pretty much instinctively.
For the Sesame Seed Oils and Shoyu sauce, I just try to make sure that there is enough to cover all of the rice. And the spices, I just gave a couple pinches of each.

By hand (and even better if you have plastic disposable kitchen gloves) mix your ingredients and break apart all the rice, and make sure the rice is getting evenly covered with your sauces and spices. This should only take a couple minutes.

In your favorite non-stick pan heat up about a couple tbl.spoons of regular cooking oil.

Tangent* In my experience in the kitchen, it is never a good thing to fry food with pure Sesame Seed Oil. Sesame Seed Oil is too thin and heats up too fast, and in my opinion can over dominate the flavor if the dish.

Back to cooking :)
When the oil is hot enough, dump you rice mixture in the pan and just evenly distribute the rice throughout the pan. Once you get a lot of heat activity going on in the pan, turn the heat down to med-high.

At this point, I have reheated my vegetables from the previous night and they are ready to be thrown in the the pan with the rice. Add about a qtr.cup water, turn content over and cover.

Tangent* I try not to stir food while cooking (unless it's soup). To me, stirring items while cooking only abuses the contents and by the time you're done cooking, you end up with mush.

 After about 4-5 minutes, turn you rice and veggies over and then crack a couple eggs into the pan and fold the eggs through the rice and veggies. Turn the heat down to simmer and cover for about 7-10 minutes.

That's it.
Eat and enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. I personally love my fried rice slightly crisp/well done - a nice sear on it.

    The best way, IMHO, to accomplish this is to leave leftover rice
    out overnight - let it dry out a bit. It won't spoil, cover it with a towel
    or whatnot if you wish. Fluff it a tad so it dries more evenly!

    Try it? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Tim!!
    Ok. I'll try it the next time :)

    ReplyDelete