Do you know where Saturdays go?
To me, Saturday’s the best day of the week. There’s still a whole day between now and Monday, PBS is running all those wonderful cooking shows all afternoon, and the comforting hum of the neighbor’s lawnmower is keeping me company as I type and watch and wonder what to do with those two overripe bananas sitting in my pantry. As you can see, I am not averse to multitasking when all the tasks involved are fun 🙂
Saturdays are also special to my dogs. Almost as if they can count the days, they wake up on Saturday as if magically aware it’s the day they will get a super-long walk, as opposed to the shorter walks on weekdays when mommy and daddy are too tired and too busy.
But there’s one problem I have with Saturday: it goes away too soon. And then I have to wait a whole week for another one.
Before this Saturday slips and slides away, I wanted to write about this fast, basic and easy but delicious dish that’s great for Saturdays when I’m having way too much fun to think about spending a long time in the kitchen. Chinese fried rice.
When making Chinese fried rice, it is really important– and I can’t stress this enough– to make sure that you work with rice that’s at least a day old. Rice that’s freshly made will stick to the wok and turn into mush, but day-old– or, as in my home sometimes, days-old– is tougher and the grains will slide smoothly in the wok, giving your fried rice the perfect texture.
I add plenty of veggies to my fried rice, and sometimes I scramble soft tofu and add it too. It is also important to chop the veggies in roughly the same size and shape so they cook together.
Also, and this is again important, have all your ingredients on hand and ready because you will have the wok on high heat and you don’t want to prep your ingredients as the rest of them are burning.
This was fun, but I’m going to get back to Jacques Pepin now. I do love the way he “shops” an onion. Have a great long weekend, everyone. And here’s to long, lazy Saturdays– may we have three each week!
- 2 cups boiled short-grain rice (the rice has to be at least a day old)
- 1 cup carrots , cut into thin strips, about 1-inch long
- 1 large green bell pepper , cut into thin strips, about 1-inch long
- 1 cup green beans , cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 large onion , thinly sliced
- 4-5 scallions or spring onions , greens cut into 1-inch pieces and whites sliced
- 5 cloves garlic , thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp sesame or canola or other vegetable oil
- In a bowl , mix together:
- 2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
- 1 tbsp hot sauce like Sriracha
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp ginger , grated
- Heat the oil in a wok or a large skillet with sides that taper out.
- Over high heat, add the onions and stir for a minute. Add the garlic, stir for 10 seconds, then add the remaining vegetables.
- Stir-fry the veggies until they begin to get just tender but you want them to remain quite crispy. Do not leave them unattended as they might burn over the high heat.
- Add the rice and stir fry for a few seconds. Then add the tamari-vinegar-ginger sauce and stir together well.
- Stir-fry for a couple minutes more. Add more tamari or vinegar if needed.
- For other delicious rice recipes, check out my
- Peas and Mushroom Biryani
- , or my
- Raisin and Nut Pilaf
- Serve hot.
Lovely Lucy
The fried rice looks so delicious…nice color 🙂
your chinese fried rice is making me hungry! looks so inviting.
This is my fav quick fix meal Vaishali .. and healthy with all those veggeis. 🙂 Must try that tamarind+vinegar the next time.
I thought that was Opie … but s/he is a Golden R and Lucy is a German S … right? Love your babies.
fried rice is tooo tempting Vaishali! Love all the pics especially Lucy’s 🙂
That is exactly what hubby says too that saturday is the best day.
Lov ethe fired rice, looks colourfull and delicous.
Chinese fried looks Yummilicious..
Love your babies..
delicious looking rice… love your write-up 🙂
I could not agree with you more about Saturday’s. I feel that way too, Friday evening’s upto Sturday evening is my favorite.
Here is wishing to 3 saturday’s a week LOL!
Loved your variation of fried rice.
Nice write up. Lovely blog and good recipe. Fried rice looks really delicious.
Ya I know weekends end too soon! Lovely fried rice recipe!
first time here…beautiful presentation..i just loved the color combination..i had uploaded mushroom fried rice in my blog..this is looking awesome.. 🙂
Hi Vaishali, love the recipe, have never made this at home! Lucy looks beautiful. Btw, you could send this to Monthly Mingle – Ravishing Rice at cookingandme.com
Lucy is captured beautifully! Very tempting fried rice!
A diffrent fried rice with the addition of hot sauce.I have also never tried scrambled tofu in fried rice.Absolutely delicious. this is/
I am all for 3 Saturday’s each week, wouldn’t it be great fun if we could really get it…the fried rice looks delish, one of my faves, loved loved your version of this rice….
Lucy is beautiful! Does she like Chinese? 🙂 Like us 😉
We are chinese fried rice people. a lot of the leftover get converted to this:-) esp. on weeknights for us. & yes i use sriracha too..
Lucy is just BEAUTIFUL!
Looks yummy! Going to try this tonight! Thank you!
Good recipe if you love spicy.