Fried Rice
Don used to try making fried rice for years when the kids were young. But he never got the hang of it, and gave it up (other than ordering it out, which was always a bit salty).
Tonight Don was wondering what to cook for dinner and looked into the fridge. There was some grilled chicken thighs from the previous night, a bunch of veggies, half a cup of cooked jasmine rice, among other things.
Then it hit him…let’s try fried rice. Inspired from a cooking show that featured fried rice the previous night, he tried to replicate the experience. It came out GREAT.
Keep the skillet hot, and just keep adding things and stirring. It should not be sitting there slowly cooking on a medium heat, that was one of my old mistakes. The cutting board was next to the skillet and through this process He was chopping, adding, stirring. It was easily a 10 minute meal (with chicken and rice pre-cooked). Don’t let any moisture build up. That wasn’t an issue this time, but it used to be. Clean dry and hot, not ‘goopy.’
Ingredients
Two chicken thighs, grilled. You could pan sear them before.
3 small sweet peppers
1/2 cup sweet onion
2 cloves garlic
Broccoli florets (about 1/2 bag)
Mushrooms
California Olive Oil
1 egg
1/2 to 1 cup cooked and cooled jasmine rice
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
Directions
In a medium non-stick skillet, heat up about 2 TBS of olive oil on a medium high temp. When hot, toss in diced sweet peppers and onions. After a minute, toss in the mushrooms and broccoli. Dice up the garlic cloves and toss in, keep stirring. Cut chicken into bite size pieces and toss in. Push everything to the side of the skillet. Sprinkle in a little olive oil and break the egg into 1/2 the open area. While that cooks, put the rice in the open 1/4. When the egg is half cooked, break it open and stir it to cook through, then mix everything together. Put in pinch or two of salt and pepper. We’re not using soy sauce at all (my old flaw) and a taste test showed it to be a little bland. We didn’t want to make up for this later by pouring soy sauce on it. Stir for another minute to heat the rice through.
Serve. He tried a little low sodium soy sauce on the side, and it absolutely wasn’t needed.
Future notes: Rats, I actually had bean sprouts, fresh ginger and sweet peas in the fridge. They would have been a great addition. Next time!
Update: Couldn’t resist, we still had some leftover chicken. We added the sprouts, ginger and peas. Also fantastic. Not required, but it gave it more depth. We sliced in about a tablespoon of thinly sliced fresh ginger, two handfuls of sprouts and about 1/2 cup of petite peas. We also served it with a garlic chili sauce and Don’s Hot Sauce, it REALLY brought things up to the next level.