Fried Rice – Cooking 101 – Grade: C

At the risk of boasting, I am a good cook. I am not a great cook, but I am probably better than average. I have turned out highly complex dishes and I have turned out meals for very large numbers. We are all born with gifts – mine just happens to be food.

However, I cannot cook some of the simplest dishes. You know, the ones you teach your kids to cook when they first become interested in cooking. It took me almost 50 years to turn out a decent stack of pancakes. Even then, given the slightest change in equipment or ingredients, I end up with beer mats – flat little rubbery things that are not fir for the dogs.

This week’s recipe falls into the same category. The only thing that makes the sorry attempts at fried rice that I have cooked up to now acceptable, is the fact that I am a bachelor and have not made anyone else eat it. however, since I have acquired a roommate who craves fried rice, I decided to come to grips with this inadequacy.

As you might surmise from the title, this is still a work in progress.

What follows is an amalgam from the internet.

• • 2 T soy sauce (gluten-free, if needed)
  • 1 T oyster sauce (gluten-free, if needed)
  • 1 T butter
  • 2 eggs, beaten, seasoned with salt
  • 2 T sesame oil
  • 1 1/2 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 T grated ginger
  • 1/2 C diced onion
  • 8 oz boneless chicken thighs (omit for vegetarian)
  • 1/2 C diced carrot – omit if in veg mix
  • 2 C leftover rice
  • 1/2 C frozen mixed veg
  • salt and pepper

Eggs courtesy of my chickens, Dolores and Beatrice.

I cannot believe that I did not understand that the egg was cooked first, removed and them put back in again at the end! Most of the miserable mixtures that I produced were a result of egg binding the rice in ways that it was never meant to.

Scramble the egg and cook with a nob of butter.

Remove and set aside.

Put the oil in the pan and bring to a very high heat. Your oil will probably be smoking. Do not worry, once you put the ingredients into the pan, the smoke will stop. However, leave the temperature on high.

Put the onion, ginger and garlic into the pan and fry for a minute or two.

Add the chicken and fry until almost cooked.

Add the rice, frozen veg and sauce and heat until hot.

Add back the egg and serve.

Verdict: Flavor good. Corn is weird in fried rice. Rice is wetter than we wanted.

H E L P ! ! !