Recipe Humpdays: Last Minute Fried Rice
So you got takeouts for the past few days and now you’re stuck with loads of extra white rice, but don’t have a whole lot of ingredients to make it into a whole meal? Here is the perfect recipe to clear out all that rice with some simple staples laying around any house: Last minute fried rice!
As with most of my other recipes, it’s really more about the method than the actual ingredients used. What i’m using here is the bare basic, so feel free to use whatever lying around. Some mushrooms or green onions would be perfect for something like this.
This recipe is actually from my friend Tommy.
Because the cooking process is so fast, as with most Chinese cooking, it’s best to have all of the ingredients pre-measured and all prepped ready to go, or Mise en Place.
Here’s what I used for this particular dish:
- two cups of leftover white rice
- one cup of frozen mixed vegetables
- two Chinese sausages (see note below), diced
- three large eggs, scrambled and lightly salted
- canola oil (but olive oil would be fine too)
- soy sauce, pepper
First, use a basic frying pan and cover the base with the canola/olive oil in medium-high, then pour in 2/3rd of the scrambled eggs mixture and let cook for a few minutes. Use a spatula to make sure the egg doesn’t stick to pan, and when it’s almost cooked (with a small portion of egg still runny above), remove from heat and place it onto a cutting board. Then slice/chop them into 1-inch cubes. You’d want the eggs slightly undercooked because they’ll continue to cook from the remainder heat whilst you start to cook the fried rice.
Now, bring a wok (if you don’t have one, a large pan would work, but a wok is definitely preferable) to high heat. Having the wok extra hot is the very secret of Chinese cooking, everything else is secondary. When the wok is very hot, put in enough oil in the diameter of a dinner plate. Add in the rice and watch out for the splatter. Leftover rice is preferable in this case since it is hardened whereas fresh rice is known to stick together due to its moisture. Use a wooden spatula and start coating the fried rice to the oil.
About a minute or so, add in the Chinese sausage. It’s not mandatory, but in this recipe it’s where most of the flavour derived from. If you don’t have any in your fridge, feel free to substitute with Spam or Hot Dogs or whatever to your liking. Next, add in the mixed veggies and pour in rest of the scrambled egg mixture. Keep stir-frying with the spatula to mix in all the ingredients for another minute or so.
At this time it should look pretty damn delicious! Throw in about two teaspoons of soy sauce (about two turns around the wok), return the scrambled eggs into the wok and turn off the heat. The remainder heat will be sufficient heat to bring out the flavours of the eggs without overcooking them.
Serve immediately. Chinese food needs to be eating when it’s piping hot!
NOTE: Again, this dish is notoriously famous to clear out whatever leftover is in your fridge as long as they are chopped to bit size chunks. Here’s some more suggestions from the top of my head: Spam, hot dogs, barbeque pork (Cha Siu or otherwise), any kind of veggies really, corn, edamame, green onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, shrimp, crab, imitation crab, fish cake, whatever. Just throw them in there and experiment, this is precisely the reason why cooking is fun.
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