Fried ginger and shallot chicken rice

(serves 4)

This blog post has come about because we made (I don't really know why) 26C of rice for 50-60 people at a youth camp, of which 20C was chicken rice. Of course, this was way too much and the Asian in me couldn't bear to throw it away, so Paul and I took a whole 10C rice-cooker full of chicken rice home with us. This was just one of my attempts to spice it up a little, fried rice is what you do with all the leftovers right? Using chicken rice was actually super tasty for stir-fry as it's so flavoursome with the chicken oil and lemongrass infusion, I mean it's so tasty i wouldn't usually have any leftover but in this strange circumstance, it was good to try it out. 

So, fried rice, it's a basic dish that's supposed to be just for anything leftover, but there are still some basic rules.

1. Perfect fried rice should be done with day old (or refrigerated) rice as it helps to keep its texture (i.e. not soggy) and every grain should be separate.

2. Each ingredient should be a similar shape and size (e.g. 1cm cube) so that it's easy to pick up and eat, and everything is 'matching' in a sense.

3. The dish should be colourful and interesting, and each ingredient should good by itself and also add or be a part of the dish.

4. You can either cook and flavour ingredients separately, then cook the rice last and toss everything back in to warm it up, OR you can strategically cook certain foods first (that don't over-cook), then add ingredients in as you go, finally adding the rice and flavouring at the end.

NB. Both work, but I have grown up on the first way, does potentially mean cleaning the wok a couple more times but everything doesn't overcooked then!

Prep time: 20 min

Cooking time: 20 min

Ingredients:

1/2 head of broccoli

1/2 head of cauliflower

1 capsicum

1 onion

1 zucchini

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2-3 C cooked chicken rice (or normal rice)

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 T shallots

1 tsp ginger, finely chopped

1 T soy sauce

1 T oyster sauce

Method:

1. Chop the broccoli and cauliflower into bite-size florets (1-2cm long).

2. Cut the capsicum, onion and zucchini into small 1cm squares, finely dice the garlic.

3. Heat a wok or pan on medium-high heat, add in 1/2 T oil, then add in the cauliflower and broccoli. Add in 2 T water and close the lid to steam for 2-3 minutes. Add in the soy sauce and oyster sauce and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Remove and clean the wok.

4. Heat the wok again, and add in 1/2 T oil, add in half the garlic, and all the onion, zucchini and capsicum. Season with 1/2 tsp salt and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes until cooked. Remove and set aside.

5. Add in 1/2 T oil to the wok and cook the egg, remove and set aside.

6. Finally, add in 1/2 T oil to the wok, the rest of the garlic, ginger, shallots and the chicken rice. Stir-fry for 2-3 minutes to coat in flavour, then add the other vegetables back in. Toss for 2-3 minutes, season with soy if needed.

7. Serve with a sprinkle of shallots and fried onion for extra crispyness!