fried rice

Fried rice

In my house when all else fails, we eat rice. Schedules messed up and there are no supplies or plans for dinner -- rice. No money left in the food budget -- rice. Stomach aches and general grumpiness -- rice. Even on days when I've lost faith in everything else, there is still a pretty good chance that somewhere in the back of my fridge in one of the 12 off-brand Tupperwares with mismatched lids jammed on the top there will be a half-filled container of rice.

I'm not sure when rice took such a central role in my kitchen, but it may have started in a small apartment in Eugene, Oregon. My sophomore year of college, I moved in with Hisayo, one of my closest friends at University of Oregon.

Sa-chan, as her friends called her, made the best fried-rice I'd ever tasted. She cooked it with corn and tiny bits of ham and whatever veggies we might have had lying around, usually just an onion and a clove or two of garlic. She'd scrape the hard and crusty remnants out of the rice cooker and make yummy brown goodness in a non-stick frying pan. Even when I was living on the fumes of my work-study check, I could count on Sa-chan's fried rice. And since then, rice has always been there, somewhere in the back of my fridge, a reminder that what ever else might be going wrong, you can usually do something right with rice.

We had a rice moment this weekend.

A few scheduling loopy loops had my one chance at a workout suddenly colliding with lunchtime for three hungry kids and two unexpected guests.

"Walk me through fried rice," my husband said, "and I'll be fine."

Here's a quick meal that almost everyone loves.

btw, the fried rice in the picture is a quick lunch I made a few weeks ago. I didn't have any corn, but corn adds a wonderful sweetness and great texture if you have it.

Fried Rice

Ingredients

(All you really need is rice, soy sauce and an egg, although if this is all you have, I'd use butter instead of oil.)

3-4 cups left over rice, short grain if possible.
2 eggs, beaten
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1 onion, chopped fine
Use what ever other veggies you want. Some good ones are:
1 carrot, diced small
1 red or green pepper, diced small
1/2 cup cabbage, diced small
1/2 cup frozen corn, defrosted
1/2 green beans, cut small

(Optional, 1/2 cup ham, diced small)

Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Canola oil

Coat a large frying pan with canola oil and heat. Add garlic and ginger. When they have released into the oil, add onion. Fry at medium-high to high heat until it starts to brown. Add carrot. (Add ham if you are using it). Fry a bit, then add other veggies. When all the veggies have started to sweat, season with soy sauce. Add a few dashes at a time and taste. You want full flavor, but it shouldn't be soaking in it. If your bottle pours fast, pour it into the cap and then pour the cap on the rice. You can always add more, but you really, really don't want soy sauce soup.

When the veggies are starting to brown and have shrunk down a bit, push them to one side and add a little more oil to the bottom of the pan. Add the rice. Break it up and mix it so it gets coated with the oil. Mix with the veggies. Allow to cook for a minute before stirring so it can brown just a little. Repeat a few times.

Add soy sauce to rice, again a few dashes at a time. When the rice is softened and the veggies are all mixed in, make a well in the middle of the rice and pour in the eggs.

fried rice egg lake

Stir the eggs in the well till they are half cooked and starting to firm up. Then mix the eggs in with the rice and cook for a few more minutes.

Add more soy sauce if needed. When the rice is done, turn off the heat. Add a small amount of sesame oil, sprinkle maybe a teaspoon or so across the rice and stir.

Serve immediately.

posted October 21, 2007 | link | contribute a comment

filed under: Recipes, Eugene, Fried rice, soy sauce, University of Oregon

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