11 May 2011



This is another one of my meatless main dishes.  I'm getting quite a collection of these!  When I started planning one meatless meal a week, honestly, I thought it would be kind of a pain.  I thought it would be hard to come up with enough good recipes that we weren't constantly eating the same thing, and I thought that my husband would dread the meatless dinner each week.  But I was wrong.  I have found a wide variety of meatless recipes to try, fortunately for me, meatless eating is really popular right now.  And Jim has absolutely loved every meatless dish I have made.  Last night, after devouring this lovely concoction, he simply put his spoon down and looked at me, very seriously, and said, "I love you."  Wow, that's some good food!

I got this recipe from my friend Barbara who got it from the blog Gina's Skinnytaste.  It's so easy to customize to your liking that I doubt any two people would make it the exact same way.  I know Barbara makes it differently than Gina and I made it differently than Barbara.  You can add or subtract veggies as you see fit.  And even though this is the new star of my  meatless main collection, you can add cubed chicken or beef or pork or whatever you like.  That's the beauty of this recipe.  Here's how I made it last night.


Thai Fried Rice


Ingredients:
3 cups jasmine rice, cooked
3 eggs, beaten
Salt
2 tsp vegetable oil
½ large onion, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup matchstick carrots
1 cup zucchini, diced
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 tsp Bangkok Seasoning
¼ cup soy sauce 
2 tsp fish sauce
salt and pepper


Directions:
Prepare rice ahead of time according to package instructions. It's best if it's made slightly on the dry side.


Heat a large skillet on a medium-high flame.  Add the eggs and salt and cook a minute or two until done. Set aside.


Add the oil to the wok and add the onion, green onion, and garlic. Saute 1 minute, add the carrots and saute for a couple of minutes.  Add the zucchini and cook for a few minutes.  Add the rice, peas, Bangkok Seasoning, soy sauce, and fish sauce.  Stir to mix all the ingredients. Keep stirring a few minutes, then add the egg back to the skillet, breaking it up into pieces with a spatula.  Adjust soy sauce if needed and stir well another 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper if needed.  Garnish with additional green onion, if desired.


Makes 4 servings.


My version is filled with way more vegetables than Gina's.  Her's just has onion, garlic, green onions, and tomatoes.  I left out the tomatoes and added the carrots, zucchini, and peas.  I think loading up on veggies is a good thing when you are going meatless, and isn't that kind of the point anyway?

You will notice that I used something called "Bangkok Seasoning".  That is a Penzey's spice blend (of course!).  If you don't have that, you can use the Thai chile that Gina used in hers or red pepper flakes.  Just something to give it a little bit of heat (or a lot if you like it that way).  I like the Bangkok, because not only does it provide subtle heat, it has other spices in it too (garlic, ginger, lemongrass, cilantro, etc) to help round out the flavors of the finished dish. 

I didn't use the right kind of rice when I made this last night, but it turned out okay anyway.  I sent my husband to the store for jasmine rice and he came back with that Uncle Ben's stuff that you microwave right in the pouch.  Not being able to control the consistency of the rice before adding it to the dish, it came out a little bit overcooked, and the jasmine flavor didn't come through very well.  Next time I'll make sure I have real jasmine rice on hand when I make this.

Thanks so much for passing this recipe along, Barbara!


Jane at The Heritage Cook whipped this recipe up at a moment's notice when I was orphaned at the Secret Recipe Club's March 2012 reveal.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

Secret Recipe Club

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5 comments:

  1. From Facebook:

    "The way you made it sounds delicious. Next time I make this I'm going to leave out the tomatoes (my husband loved them but I could have done without them) and add carrots and peas instead!"

    Liz M. (Barbara's twin sister. See, even twins don't make it the same way!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. From Facebook:

    "I added a bag of frozen carrots & peas last time and loved it. Liz, I can't believe you didn't like the tomatoes, those were my favorite part!"

    Barbara B.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love fried rice!! I must try out this recipe for it looks and sounds delicious!! Now following you and can't wait to see what you will make next!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Tiffanee! I'm following you too; the pb and jam shortbread bars look amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a comment left by Tiffanee at "One Crazy Cookie". It got deleted during Blogger's outage on May 12.

    "I love fried rice!! I must try out this recipe for it looks and sounds delicious!! Now following you and can't wait to see what you will make next!!"

    Thanks, Tiffanee!

    ReplyDelete