Fried Rice

It has come to my attention, and a bit of a surprise to me really, that despite the slight Asian theme that this blog takes, I have never managed to cover fried rice, that mainstay of Asian cuisine. Given that this blog started out aiming for readership from university, I'm almost ashamed that I have not talked about it, given that it is a very quick meal to prepare (especially if you already have cooked the rice from previously) and a highly effective way to use up leftovers. I happen to have ingredients available to make fried rice with ham and peas, both pretty prevalent in the diets of many Britons, so I thought it would be rather fitting to do something along these lines.


The Chinese have an interesting technique for cooking the rice, which involves mixing egg into the rice until everything is evenly coated in egg. This is commonly referred to as "gold covering silver", a reference to the golden hue of the egg yolk coating the whiteness of the rice grain. I will attempt to demonstrate this today.

I will be using two canned items from the Sainsbury's Basics range today, processed peas and ham. I got the latter around the same time I got the tinned chopped pork, the difference on initial inspection of the tin appearing to be the lower salt content. The texture is meatier, and feels less like the processed food product that is the Basics Chopped Pork and Ham. Still, some people might actually consider that as a bad thing.

Mince some garlic for the fried rice. Fry quickly, and then throw in the ham and peas.

Mix egg into portions of rice at a ratio of 1:1. Add to the pan, and keep stirring to prevent the egg from sticking. Serve.

 

This meal turned out to be quite enjoyable. The peas however were starchy and heavy-going, so I would advise against using these, recommending instead the Basics Frozen Peas. These only come in bags of 2kg however. It's nice to see though that the eggs have lent themselves well to the slightly yellowish hue of the rice; with practice, I might be able to do this for guests.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Ham (tinned)	£0.99	200g	+£0.40	Leaner, healthier ham