I make a down and dirty fried rice at least three nights a week, and I’ll put *literally* anything in my veggie drawer in it.
The last handful of spinach? Sure. Half a leftover onion, red pepper, and poblano? In you go. Tupperware of leftover corn off the cob from six days ago? Get in the pan.
What is the easiest protein? Leftover whatever (Jeff Chu throws in leftover brisket). Or a handful of frozen shrimp I ran under hot water, dried, and tossed in seasoning.
Or dear lord, the egg. Thank you Mary Mother of Jesus for the incorruptible egg.
None of it matters because you are also going to use:
*Garlic
*Ginger (I JUST discovered squeezable ginger and I am out here living in 3022)
*Soy
*Rice wine vinegar
*Sriracha
*Spicy mayo
This is also why I put all this over cauliflower rice which is inarguably UNINSPIRED but who cares when you have all the sauces?
So here’s what you do:
- Dice up your veggies, whatever the hell they are.
- Heat some high-temp oil over high heat, and in they all go. Sizzzzzlllllle.
- Toss with S&P (or use @nomnompaleo’s spice blend!) and let them get a little charred which they WILL GET if you don’t stir them too damn much. I swear the number of times I pushed Ben Hatmaker off my pans because he just stands there and stirs.
- Push all your veggies to the side, add some butter, and fry up your cauliflower rice for a few minutes.
- Turn down the heat and add the garlic and ginger and toss it all together like fried rice for a minute. Add a few splashes of soy and rice wine vinegar and toss.
- Warming through leftover meat? Throw it in and toss.
- Doing a quick saute on shrimp or frying some eggs? Scootch everything to the side and cook those up in butter. Toss it all together (take the eggs out first if you fried those OVER EASY).
- Plate it up with a drizzle of sriracha and spicy mayo (just mix together mayo and sriracha and a squeeze of lime).
Spicy mayo is my live-in boyfriend.
Want to be fancy? Top with diced scallions or cilantro or basil.
The quantities are whatever you have and however much you want, so just go with God on that.
Speaking of food, you can find more recipe goodness in my debut cookbook, Feed These People. There’s still plenty of cooking irreverence here, although I promise all recipes are SLIGHTLY more exact.
