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January 16, 2009

tasty AND good for you

At 101 cookbooks there is a recipe that makes brussels sprouts taste like ambrosia. Startlingly simple. Browse around there, there are tons of San Franciscan organovegelicious recipes there. It's caused me to happily increase my appreciation whole grain textures. Inspired by that foodie website, I've started adding quinoa to my morning oatmeal and I tell you, it's a whole new world. The texture is 100% better.

So now that I'm out of Thailand, I have to tweak my fried rice recipe, since Horapa and fresh green peppercorns are rather less readily available in the cold north. But, you can still make a decent fried rice with winter veggies and no meat, even. I list ingredients, albeit amorphously, but you'll have to eyeball appropriate quantities. It's the nature of the dish, man, you're getting rid of leftover rice and some random shit in your fridge:

  • cooked rice, preferably half white and half brown.
  • garlic
  • ginger
  • a little bit of chili peppers, or cayenne powder, or rooster sauce
  • leeks. or shallots. or onions.
  • soy sauce. or if you're going for a thai-er flavor: fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.
  • green onions to cut up and add raw right before eating.
  • tofu
  • an egg
  • celery root
  • peas. or snow peas. or yknow... whatever vegetable might seem to fit. Yes, frozen peas are a winter vegetable. Shush.
  • hell, throw in some walnuts or cashews if you feel like it.

The premise: cheap starch, cheap protein, fried, spiced and salted such that it ceases to matter that the foodstuffs are cheap. All the protein and vegetables, you can play fast and loose with that. Going out and buying celery root just for this sort of goes against the spirit of the recipe, though I gotta say it is surprising and very tasty in fried rice.

The following is best done in a nice roomy wok.

First beat the egg and fry it like an omelet on medium to med-high heat in a little bit of oil. When it's done, take it out, cut it into little pieces and set that aside for later. Meanwhile brown the tofu, then put in the leeks and vegetables (depending how fast they cook) and peppers. Then the garlic. When things are looking looking about done, put the eggs back in, and some soy sauce, and the ginger, and the rice. Stir fry till it starts looking and smelling like a proper fried rice. Turn off the heat and mix in the green onions.

If you're vegan, skip the egg, you won't even miss it. In fact, if you're a carnivore, you might not even notice the lack of meat. This fried rice should be flavorful, a wee bit spicy, and have a nice variety of textures.

Posted by amanda at 01:49 PM | TrackBack