Michelle Crawford's Same Old Crap - Fried Rice

Michelle Crawford’s Same Old Crap – Fried Rice
26 February 2014

It is such an awesomely amazing pleasure to have this lady here. Her beautiful blog, Hugo and Elsa, is such a treat. She is super duper clever, talented, beautiful and pretty bloody funny too. Oh and she has awesome taste in music. She also lives in one of my favourite parts of the world. Maybe if she was a boy (and wasn’t already married with two awesome kids) I would marry her. Michelle has also been another one of my amazing supporters over the past year and I thank you form the bottom of my big, gushy heart. Lots of love to you.

Fried Rice

Fried Rice, I can’t believe I’m even telling you this recipe, but for me it fits the criteria of the same old crap. We eat this at least once a week and it’s my go to recipe when I need dinner fast. Like when we’re out in the garden and it’s 6:30 I’ve forgotten to cook dinner. Or you walk in to a cold dark house after a play date/soccer practice/dental appointment at 6pm and it’s time for dinner now! Sometimes I even make it in the morning and put it in thermoses for lunch. Beats a sandwich any day.

Now I know wisdom dictates that you’re supposed to use cold left over cooked rice but I am never that organised. Cook extra rice for the following day? What a grand idea. But we tend to feed left over rice to the chooks. So I just chuck on the rice cooker and start prepping the other ingredients, no one will ever know I promise

This dish takes 15 minutes max, it’s got lots of vegetables and without fail my peeps will eat it. It’s the most basic of basic fried rice. You could fancy it up with bbq pork or duck or shredded cooked chicken or sliced lap cheong, (chinese sausage) if you like, that would be very nice too.

I’ve used carrots and peas because that’s what I had, but you could use corn or bok choy or kale, whatever you like, just make sure you cut things tiny, not quite the same size as a grain of rice but close to it. Maybe pea size. That way it’s easy to mix AND the kids will eat all those tiny green bits. And if you’re cooking for four just double the recipe. As long as your wok is big enough.

What you need

Serves 2

• 2 cups of jasmine rice, cooked
• 1 tbs frying oil – I use coconut, sometimes with a splash of sesame
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 carrots, grated
• 1/2 cup of peas, frozen is fine
• 1 green onion, halved or quartered length ways then sliced
• soy sauce
• Optional extras
• fried shallots
• sriracha chili sauce (Michelle has put this as optional, but come on! Just get it on there, and lots of it!!)

What to do

1. First beat the eggs to make them smooth. Traditionally you use chopsticks for this job.
2. Heat the oil in a hot wok until smoking.
3. Add beaten egg and stir constantly, breaking up the eggs into little nuggets of gold. You don’t want big chunks here.
4. When the egg is cooked, add the rice and continue stirring and tossing until the egg is even dispersed through the rice (if your rice is just cooked, this won’t take long, but if it’s cold, you want the rice to heat through.)
5. Add carrot and peas and continue tossing and stirring until heated through.
6. Pour about a tablespoon of soy sauce around the edge of the wok to evenly distribute and stir and toss through.
7. Add green onion and turn off the heat then stir through until combined.
8. Serve with extra soy sauce, fried shallots and chili sauce. Coriander leaves are nice if you want to be fancy.
9. Dinner on the table in 15 minutes – go you!