Fried Rice

Jennie asked me for my fried rice recipe a couple weeks ago. The terrible friend that I am, I still haven't written her back. Sorry Jennie! The problem is, there is no real recipe. It's more of a, "Put in as much garlic/scallions/eggs as you want" method. Feel free to adjust.

Mise en place:
Cooked rice (leftover rice from the day before is best because it's less sticky, but I rarely plan that far in advance for fried rice), scallions, garlic, white pepper, scrambled eggs (broken up into little bits), Spam, soy sauce, oyster sauce, chicken marinade sauce (Lee Kum Kee brand, totally optional. My mom puts it in hers and I recently got a bottle, but I'm not sure if it makes a difference).

Mince the garlic. I used about 5 cloves because I cooked 5 cups of rice for today's batch. Dice the Spam. I used the whole can, but you can use less if you like. I think you'd normally see roast pork standing in for the pig portion of fried rice, but I never liked that because roast pork can be harder to chew. Spam is just right. Slice the scallions. I used a whole bunch, white and green parts. Of course, adjust to your taste. My brother doesn't even like scallions in his fried rice at all.

I don't have a wok, and you might not either, but you can still make fried rice! I used the 8-quart stock pot that came in my Cuisinart pot set. I once tried using my Le Creuset buffet casserole pot, because it was more wok-like, but I made a big mess without the higher walls of the stock pot. I dumped in a few tablespoons of vegetable oil, heat at medium-low, and then tossed in the garlic. Let it sizzle for about 20 seconds (you don't want it to brown, there's still a bunch of cooking to go). I apologize for the crappy camera work; the kitchen doesn't have very good lighting, especially over the stove, and I was afraid of dropping the camera into the pot.

In goes the rice. Because I used rice that was cooked the same day, it was harder to mix in with the garlic. I felt like such a weakling because my arm started to hurt from tossing the rice around, trying to break it up.




After the rice and garlic have mixed together, add the soy sauce, oyster sauce, and chicken marinade sauce. I use just a little soy sauce and chicken marinade because I like the oyster sauce flavor more. As you can see, I put a big dollop of oyster sauce in. If you don't like oyster sauce, leave it out and add a little more soy sauce instead. Then stir to combine. I hope you have a strong cooking arm! I think this may have gone better if I used a shorter spoon.


Now that your rice is a tannish sort of color, add the Spam and scallions. I guess I'm not really frying anything, as much as heating everything up. Stir to combine and sprinkle in some white pepper to your taste. If it's just Josh and me, I make it spicier, probably using at least a teaspoon in this batch.


Now add your scrambled eggs. For this much rice, I scrambled 4 eggs earlier in the day after I made breakfast. I like to cut down on the amount of dishes I have to wash wherever possible. Stir in the eggs and you're done!



And there you have it! Easy fried rice! I like to add peas sometimes too, and would have done so tonight, but I only have one box and I need it for tomorrow's meal, smashed peas with turkey and ricotta cheese.