Things wot I Made Then Ate: fried rice

Showing posts with label fried rice. Show all posts

Fried rice

Fried rice is an exacting recipe developed over centuries.

1. You take any kind of oil heat it to high.

2. Flavor the oil with any kind aromatic at hand

3. Add any kind of vegetable seasonably available in stages

4. Add any protein you can manage

5. Finish with any sauce of your liking.

And never vary from this recipe. It's ritualized. Codified. It's like a religion.

It's a trick!

A magical trick involving water.

I meant to do that!

Nobody likes a perfect food dome.

It's anal retentive and there you are thinking about anal things at the dinner table. Best to mess up the dome.

Fresh vegetables and sausage fried rice

This is a carrot that came in a package of odd carrots.

Soy sauce

Hoisin sauce

Toasted sesame seed

Not shown:

homemade cilantro sausage

two jumbo eggs that were both double yolk, so 4 small egg yolks. Added at the end off the heat and mixed through.

This itty bitty serrano chile shines right through.

Rice with pork and mushrooms, green onions

Two things are going on but it didn't have to be that way. Flavored rice topped with flavored pork. They could have been combined, but that would have been a visual mess and this is art, People, ART!

The pork is the same pork roast shown in the previous post.

There are more photos valued personally as artifacts and perhaps as little mycological studies but you're not having them.

I keep thinking my secret pictures of mushrooms would make good paintings if the canvases were gigantic and took up a whole wall. You know, for impact. For vegetables I would say they are quite suggestive and even a bit lewd. Okay, fine. Here.

Fried rice

Fried rice 2

Oh, Man that fried rice was good. The thing is, I still have a ton of Asian vegetables picked up for the sukiyaki, so I made fried rice again. The exact same way, and I mean exactly the same way ... 'cept differ'nt.

Mushrooms don't last forever, you know. So I used 'em -- a LOT of them. Also I picked up a daikon radish that I didn't show yet. It's the large white thing that's shredded thusly usually seen on sushi plates. They always have those daikons at Asian markets, less frequently at western markets. It has a definite radish flavor and texture that is lost when cooked. Because of that, I like to add more in raw form for the plate. It's interesting to have raw vegetables mixed with cooked. The daikon was turned on the Japanese Benriner shredding tool first. It's designed to shred a whole potato or some such into a series of long continuous filaments. It's the sort of thing that's just plain fun. Have the kids do it. They'll have a ton of fun using the thing. It's safe too. Except for the little razor blades. Same thing with salad spinners, really gets 'em going.

A few of the vegetables needed a head start so they went into the pan with a little water to steam first, then a tablespoon of oil and the rest of the vegetables as with a stir-fry. Just heat through, barely cook. Add flavor ingredients, then the rice.

The green shreds is seaweed that I got at the Asian market. I keep it refrigerated in a tub of water. It's in the form of exceedingly long shreds. I like to add it to things for its sea-weedy mineral goodness and its oceanic flavor.

The protein ingredients are

* shrimp, cut to pieces. (ridiculous to buy huge ones then cut them, I know, but that's what I do)
* scallops (ridiculous to buy huge ones then cut them, I know, but that's what I do. Hey. I'm having the strangest sense of déjà vu)

* firm tofu

My favor ingredients:

* grated ginger
* grated garlic
* fish sauce (fermented anchovy and water, very strong)
* saki
* mirin
* soy sauce
* black pepper
* red cayenne pepper

* Thai mint

Fried rice

Per my brother's suggestion, fried rice the way Sueko taught us. Patiently, she showed us to rinse the Japanese rice seven time ritualistically. We don't bother with that using American rice. Steam covered for 35 minutes, an additional 10 minutes off the heat, not ever lifting the cover to check because that cancels the steaming. Lately, I've been cutting a disc from a paper towel square to use as a gasket between the pot and the lid. The protein for that first attempt as a child was chopped hotdogs and the flavor agent was catsup. Sueko found that amusing.

This rice is different from any other I've tried. It's a powdery white. It steamed wetter than normal.

* 1.5 cups rice
* 2.5 cups water (could get by with 2 or 2.25)

The rest of the ingredients are things I picked up for the sukiyaki except for chicken/turkey frozen from before and nori (alga -- the black paper-like squares, bottom right corner) which I always have on hand.

This dish was contrived to make use of leftover rice, but who ever has that? I just made a fresh batch specifically for this. You can use any vegetable and protein you wish, even Western vegetables, broccoli is nice, cremini mushroom, those sorts of things. Use what you have on hand. There is very little actual cooking involved, basically, just heating through. After the rice steamed, the rest took just a few minutes. In this manner, your fried rice never comes out exactly the same twice. Unless of course you happen to be some kind of neurotic freak that follows a specific recipe precisely each time and that would be insane.

Usually only soy sauce is used but I included saki and mirin because I'm becoming quite fond of that combination. To finish, an egg cracked into the mixture off the heat. That's what that lovely yellow creamy stuff is. The white tends to set gently as possible by residual heat.

I did not include any chile flakes or any other intensifying seasoning and that makes me wonder if I should make an appointment to see the doctor, or what.

Asians cook the life out of eggs until the egg-bits vulcanize and turn into rubber. They put it in first. I add it in last off the heat and let the residual heat of the rice cook it. They undoubtedly have their reason but I don't know what it is. All that I know is what I like.