This is a simple lunch I made for the BF with leftover plain rice and whatever I could find from our fridge.
It turned out delicious and light; the rice grains were properly separated and coated with eggs, the salted vegetables contributed a nice savoury crunch while the ham and crab sticks gave the fried rice a delicious, meaty flavour.
# – Ham, crabstick and egg fried rice with salted vegetables.
You may notice that the method of cooking fried rice in this recipe is vastly different from the traditional Chinese way of cooking fried rice, where everything is dumped into a wok over strong flames and stirred and tossed rapidly till each and every granule is imparted with “wok qi” and flavours.
Unfortunately, I can’t cook fried rice like that because:
(1) I don’t have a wok…or rather we had a shitty one which we decided to discard after a particularly bad episode of scrubbing off burnt food..
(2) I don’t have the strength to keep tossing the ingredients in rapid movement. Yes, I am a weakling and an embarrassment to my race.
To spare myself from further humiliation, lets begin on how to cook this dish….
The ingredients:
- Cooked plain rice for 2 person
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper
- 4 crabsticks, chopped
- 2 slices of ham, sliced into strips
- 1 handful of salted vegetables (“choi bou” in cantonese), soaked and drained
- 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
- A few dashes of Worcestershire sauce
- Some white pepper
- A few pieces of lettuce leaves, for garnish
# – First of all, heat up a non-stick pan with some oil.
# – Pour in the beaten eggs, tilt the pan in a circular motion so that the eggs could coat the pan.
# – While the eggs are still rather runny, throw in the rice.
# – Stir the rice into the eggs. Keep stirring for about 2 minutes.
# – Now, push the rice to one side, and throw in the salted vegetables. Stir until they seem a bit dry then only you mix them into the rice and egg mixture.
# – Now, push the rice, egg and salted vegetables to one side and throw in the crabsticks.
# – Followed by the ham strips. Stir both meats around until they’re a little browned on the edges.
# – Lastly, mix everything up together.
# – Add a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce.
# – Followed by 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce.
# – Finish it off with a good sprinkling of white pepper. Stir and lightly toss everything for about 5 minutes.
# – Ham, crabstick and egg fried rice with salted vegetables, DONE!
No ancient kung fu was involved in the making of this fried rice but it tasted absolutely awesome. With this cooking method, it’s almost as though every ingredient was cooked separately and then finally mixed together. Only they were all cooked separately in the same pan and mixed together in stages, hence there’s no clumpy or sloppy bits.
And what do you know, the BF thought I had actually managed to impart some “wok qi” into the dish, woohoo!