The Household COO

Thanks to the power failure yesterday, I ended up with a whole pot of brown rice that I didn’t know what to do with.  The power was cut while the rice was partway through cooking and by the time it came back on, it was too late for the rice to be ready in time for dinner so we ended up having to cook a batch of white rice instead.  Since the brown rice was already partially cooked, I had to let the rice cooker complete its cycle anyway.

So the hubby suggested I make fried rice for tonight’s dinner… 

Well, I have made fried rice before - during my home economics class in highschool.  I can’t say it turned out wonderfully - at least my memory of it wasn’t great.  If I remember correctly, the grains of rice were too hard but the rest of it was okay.  All I remembered from that lesson in school was what my teacher said about fried rice being known as the seven-jewelled wonder in Chinese recipes, or something along those lines.  Basically what it meant was that true Chinese fried rice is usually cooked with seven different ingredients blended into the rice.  I didn’t question her since she was also Chinese, so I figured she ought to know what she was talking about.

At home, fried rice was what Mum made whenever she had left overs to dispose of.  So much for “seven-jewelled wonder”…  But mostly what I remembered and loved about my Mum’s fried rice was the Chinese sausages and the lovely colouration from the peas, carrots and corn.  So I decided I was going to repeat that in my batch of fried rice, plus some chicken to appease the hubby’s taste for “real” meat.

I adapted my fried rice recipe from my trusty cooking resource - Healthy Chinese Cooking - with my own personal modifications to the ingredients.  I didn’t get to seven different ingredients (unless you count the rice) but I did managed to include six different ingredients (chicken, chinese sausage, egg, carrots, peas and corn). 

How did it turn out?

Well, I got two votes out of three.  Sad to say that the hubby was less than thrilled to see peas, carrots and chinese sausage in the mix.  Even the corn wasn’t particularly welcomed.  Hubby’s note to wife: no peas, carrots, corn and chinese sausages in fried rice in future; corn is only okay when eaten with steak.  Well!  I like fried rice with peas, carrots, corn and chinese sausages!  And apparently so did Gavin and the maid (who told me my dinner was “sedap” - Malay for “delicious”).

Personally, when I did the taste test after cooking it, I thought it tasted pretty good, too.  The funny thing was that it sort of lost it’s flavour when I sat down to eat dinner and I’m not sure why.  The same thing happened with the soup.  I made soup with Chicken, carrot and cabbage and when I tasted it after cooking, I thought it was pretty good.  Funny how it lost its taste later.  I wonder if this is what some chefs experience when they say they can’t eat their own cooking?  After cooking for so long, it’s like their appetite for food just disappears.

Anyway, if you take the maid and Gavin’s word that my fried rice was yummy and would like the recipe, here it is…

Ingredients

• 1/2 pot of Cooked Rice (this is how much I used, but you might want to decrease the quantity because I think it’s a little too much. The recipe from Healthy Chinese Cooking calls for 2 bowls of cooked rice)
• 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
• Dash of Pepper
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Concentrated Chicken Stock
• 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
• 3 Eggs, beaten
• 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
• 200g Frozen Mixed Vegetables (peas, carrots and corn)
• 3 pieces of Chicken breast
• 2 Chinese sausages

Method

1. Place rice into a large bowl and break it up so the rice grains are separated.  Add sesame oil, pepper and salt and mix until the seasoning is evenly distributed.

2. Microwave the vegetables on HIGH heat for 2 minutes until cooked.

3. Chop the chicken breast into cubes and marinate with chicken stock and soy sauce.

4. Heat a small amount of oil in a non-stick wok.  Fry the garlic until fragrant, add the meat and fry until cooked through. Set aside.

5. Pour beaten egg into the center of the wok and allow to half-set (do not stir).

6. Add rice, peas, marinated chicken and chinese sausages. Stir to mix.

7. Serve when rice is heated through.

I also made soup, which was basically yesterday’s soup recipe without the cooking wine, and instead of spinach, I added carrots and cabbage.  Tasted pretty good, too - at least, I thought so.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under cooking, recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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