Foodsploit – Fried Rice

So, today’s (first) foodsploit was to make fried rice. After enjoying Thai Fried rice at various thai restaurants (MUCH better than the chinese stuff), I decided I wanted to make it myself.

As always, if you’re not familiar with the foodsploit concept, and you’d like to be, check this out.

Now, as I noted with this weekend first foodsploit, I spent a bunch of money when I heard there was a snowstorm coming in on food, with the intention of making a bunch of stuff to tide myself and my roommates over. This time, it worked out pretty well. No one wanted to try the slinger, but alex got in on the fried rice. :-)

So, what went into the fried rice. I got long-grain brown rice, and then decided on tomatoes, snow peas, sugar peas, green beans, onions, green pepper, eggs, fresh basil, and some crushed red pepper. For the sauce, I used what was available: I had some “schezuan” (sp?) stir fry sauce, some fish oil, some sesame seed oil, some leftover (and going bad) red wine, and some thai chili-garlic paste.

First things first, got the rice going. Regina has introduced me to a way of making rice where you boil the water first, separate from the rice, and sort of saute the rice in a bit of oil (or whatever fat you like), so I went with that. Also, I added some beef broth to make it more flavorful.

That went pretty well, and while the rice was boiling down I chopped up all the vegetables and scrambled the eggs in the wok. I used a branded wok oil for that, so that I kept the flavors consistent. I think next time I would fry the eggs, totally cooking them, before slicing them up. I think the frying gives them a better texture than the scrambling does.

As for the chopping, I had two different styles for the onions, because I still had diced onions from friday’s tacos that I wanted to use up, and then I sliced the rest. That worked out well. Also, I cut the tomatoes into half-wedges about 1/2 inch thick. I wanted them to stand on their own, but still be bite sized. It worked out perfectly. Everything else was pretty straight forward.

Next, on to the sauce. I had queried Mr. Google about the best way to make thai fried rice, and he responded with this page, which I was using as a loose guide. It had you adding the sauce first, then the rice, then the other stuff, so that’s what I did. I put in the oil (sesame, this time) then the schezuan sauce, then the fish oil and chili-garlic paste, and put in a long splash of wine for finishing. I mixed it all up (and, oh! the sizzling was great), then dumped in the rice (still fairly wet, a little undercooked at this point) and started mixing.

I did the vegetables in stages…first the onions and garlic, which I wanted to be a bit softer than everything else, then the broccoli, then most of the peas and green beans, and finishing off with the tomatoes. At some point during all that, I also added in some of the crushed red pepper, just to make sure it had a good spice presence.

As soon as the tomatoes got hot, it was time to eat.

This meal was pretty much a pure win. The spiciness was prefect – balanced, added flavor, but not too much. All the vegetables still had their own flavor intact, but it was all tied together by the sauce. The rice ended up being a little underdone, still, but rice overall is something that I need to work on overall. Still, I’m very happy with this one.

Oof. I really set myself up with all these factors, didn’t I?

Food quotient: Super-high. The only thing that wasn’t food was a little bit of stuff in the sauces, and even those had mostly recognizable ingredients. There was some xanthan gum (sp?), and some kind of acid, both low on the portion list.

Cost from on hand is probably going to be medium. It was all vegetables, and most of them weren’t expensive, so you probably get away with about 10-15, and it makes enough for three, easily. Cost from scratch is significantly higher, because you have to buy all that saucing and oil. Fortunately, on this one, I already had the sauces and oils on hand. I do wish we’d had soy sauce. I can’t believe we didn’t.

Cleanup factor was medium-high. I made it worse by putting all my veggies into separate bowls, but that makes it so much easier to get your timing right that it’s worth it. Here’s the obligatory “clean kitchen” picture.

I didn’t empty the dish rack, this time. :-)