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For the love of food.

Kitchen-sink fried rice

by

Every Friday my hubby’s office group gets together to order lunch which the company pays for. It’s a great morale booster – can you imagine looking forward to a paid lunch every Friday? It would be a definite perk for me!

Anyway, so this past Friday the boys ordered in some Chinese. There was loads of plain steamed rice leftover. My husband and I grew up with the “starving child in Africa” story – he actually knew some such kids – so he brought over the rice.

Cold Chinese rice is perfect for only one thing – fried rice. My fridge is usually chock-full of veggies so out came: onions, ginger, garlic, shredded carrots, zucchini, red peppers, mushrooms, all cut to the same size. I yanked out a couple of eggs and a bunch of frozen shrimp. The trick in making good (not necessarily authentic!) fried rice is to:

  1. Have cooked, cold short-grain rice on hand
  2. Use plenty of oil to ensure the rice doesn’t stick (I also always use both regular vegetable and sesame oil for flavour)
  3. Fry it in stages
  4. The wok must be hot! and large enough to move stuff around briskly in…
  5. Stock cubes are essential to flavouring, along with soya sauce, hot sauce/chilli sauce and ginger/garlic

Stage 1: I stir-fried all the veggies in hot oil tempered with garlic, ginger and onions. Zucchini and peppers first, mushrooms last. I didn’t add peas (didn’t feel like) or green onions (didn’t have any) although they would make good additions. Must crumble 1/2 the stock cube here along with soya sauce and hot sauce. Totally rounds out the flavour. I removed the veggies to another dish.

Stage 2: Heated up some oil(s), added in some ginger/garlic, crumbled 1/4 stock cube and stir-fried my eggs and prawns until cooked through. Removed them to the veggie dish.

Stage 3: Fried the cold rice in some oil(s), crumbled in the remaining 1/4 stock cube and heated the rice through. Added in the veggies, eggs and prawn mixture and stir-fried till well mixed. Finished with shredded cilantro leaves.

A yummy kitchen-sink rice dish.

Posted in: Main Courses Tagged: Chinese, Rice, Shrimp, veggies

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