And after a long hiatus (#2?), the absconding blogger is
back! It would be fun to say that I was busy coming up with new ideas for the
blog, but really I was just busy with a ton of school work. Part 2 of the last
post will come up soon. Until then, I have a post that’s different from what
you’ve seen here so far. The posts are detailed to the last quarter of a
teaspoon with notes about oil splatters. Not this one though! This post is all
about pictures. I picked a fairly simple recipe and decided to do a photo sequence
that takes you through all the stages. And the chosen recipe is…..<drumroll
please>…..Fried Rice! Yeah…quite the anti-climax.
Fried rice is unavoidable at any Asian/Indian-Chinese
restaurant you go to. Whether people in Asia really eat what we call ‘fried
rice’ is a whole different question. Anyway, the point is that fried rice is
very customizable with every recipe using different ingredients and in varying
proportions. It’s really ‘as you like it’. So I’ll tell you how I
did it, but without perfect measurements. Enjoy…..
I decided to go with a vegetable, shrimp and egg fried
rice tonight. So step 1 involved dealing with the shrimp egg. I thawed about a
dozen medium sized shrimp and gave them a quick 5-10 minute marinade with a
tiny amount of turmeric, a pinch of salt and a little bit of ground red chilli
pepper. I love spices, but if you don’t feel free to just stick to salt…..and
maybe some pepper if you wish. Next, I fried the shrimp in about a spoonful of
oil in my fried rice pan. Took the shrimp out and then scrambled an egg in the
pan….I added the same spices to the egg. Here's what it ended up looking like.
Step 2 – Added a tad more oil to the pan and threw in
some star anise, diced red onion, ginger, garlic and some Thai chilli peppers.
Star anise is a great aromatic and gives off a pretty good fragrance and flavor
to the food. That said, it’s not a must have. Feel free to use five spice
powder….or nothing. Oh and those Thai chilli peppers can be nasty hot….so use
with care.
When the onion looked done, I added diced zucchini and
carrots and let the veggies get cooked. Covering the pan at this point is a
good idea. The veggies took about 7-8 minutes to get done.
Next up, I added some thawed corn and the fried goodness
(shrimp and egg). And here’s where the customization fun comes in. I used soy
sauce, a pinch of salt and some ketchup. You could use oyster sauce or some
stir-fry sauce…..get creative! And the FINAL step……I added cold, cooked rice to
all the wonderful things in the pan. And this is what it ended up looking like…..
So that was my dinner tonight…..hope you enjoyed it too.
;)
And yes….COLD RICE is the secret to a great fried rice.
