Thursday Dinner: Simple fried rice

Fried rice is one of the quickest things you can make. It's not super easy, but you just have to be careful about few things. I made my fried rice vegetarian today by using this thing called "tempeh." It's like fermented soybean cake. It's not a Japanese ingredient but became popular after it was featured as this really healthy food on a popular TV show, so my mom used to put it in omelet when I was at home last time. I found tempeh at this organic food store and decided to try it out. It actually tasted little different than I remembered. It had a pretty strong taste of fermentation, but it wasn't so bad after I cooked it. If you're not sure about this tempeh thing or can't find it, just use chicken breast, ham, or sausage.

Simple fried rice (for 2 people):
Rice (2 cups cooked) - It's easier to make fried rice with non-sticky rice.
Onion (1/2 medium or 1/2 cup diced)
Celery (2 stalks - 1/2 cup diced)
Tempeh (1/2 cup diced) - You can substitute diced chicken, ham, or sausage
Egg (1)
Sesame oil (1 Tbsp)
Vegetable oil (1 Tbsp)
Soy sauce (1/2 Tbsp)
Salt (1 tsp)
Pepper

1. Spread warm rice on a plate and let it cool a bit while you cut the vegetables.
2. Dice the onion and celery. Dice tempeh or any meat you are using.
3. Beat an egg in a little bowl.
4. Heat pan or wok at high heat with sesame oil and vegetable oil.
5. Once the pan/wok is really hot (very important), add all the vegetables and tempeh/meat. Keep stirring so they don't burn. Try to let the stuff go up in the air. It's very important to do that because that's how you get rid of excess moisture in food.
6. When the onion is transparent (happens very quickly), put the egg in.
7. When the egg is half cooked, put the rice in. Again, keep stirring and try to let it go up in the air. Put salt and pepper in and mix well.
8. Put soy sauce on the side of the pan/wok, not directly on rice. Keep stirring. When everything is well incorporated, serve.

Once you start stir-frying, everything happens pretty quickly. It's very important to have everything ready in front of you before you begin stir-frying. Once you master this basic fried rice, you can make any fried rice. Try other vegetables like green pepper, carrot, broccoli, etc. I would avoid leaf vegetables though (diced cabbage would be fine).

---

Technorati Tags:fried rice, tempeh