fried rice

1. theory
2. equipments
3. ingredients
4. recipe

theory

Fried rice is an excellent thing to do with a pint of white rice leftover from ordering Chinese takeout. Another thing you can do with that, of course, is whip up a batch of rice griddle cakes for breakfast, but that is neither here nor there. Too, you can use any leftover rice that you may have. In fact, it is in almost all cases advisable to intentionally make too much rice, just so that you have leftover enough with which to make fried rice. Operating at this level does require some thinking ahead, but it is not exactly Rocket Science.

A note on some of the ingredients, and their preparation. First, it is nice to peel the carrot. If you do not have a peeler, you may always trim it with a knife, which is a pretty basic implement, and not one you should ever be without in the kitchen. But if you do not wish to peel the carrot, even though it is nice to do, you do not absolutely have to. It is okay. Second, the peas. Try to find in the aisle where are the frozen vegetables, not just "green peas", but "petite green peas". It remains to be determined whether using petite peas has any appreciable effect in this dish, but it is nice to believe that it does, in fact. Perhaps they possess a more powerful, for being more youthful, force of life. Regardless, you must approach all things with a positive attitude. That is one of the first steps. If you are faking it, merely going through the motions, as they say, your equipments and your ingredients will sense it, and react accordingly, and you might even risk poisoning those for whom you are preparing the dish in the first place -- yourself not excepted!

equipments

• stove
• wok
• spoon
• spatula
• chopping block
• kitchen knife
• vegetable peeler
• towel

ingredients

• coconut oil
• garlic
• ginger root
• yellow onion
• carrot
• scallions
• leftover rice
• silken tofu, extra firm
• petite green peas, frozen
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• salted peanuts
• sriracha

recipe

1. peel, trim, and mince the garlic
2. peel and mince the ginger root
3. peel, trim, and dice the onion
4. gently under cool water wash and scrub and pat dry the carrot, peel it, trim it, and dice it
5. trim and slice the scallions
6. roughly chop the peanuts -- nothing fancy
7. slice the tofu into small cubes
8. set the wok on the stove over highish heat and spoon in some oil; turn the wok to coat its inside with the oil as it melts
9. add the onion to the wok, stir fry it, add the garlic and the ginger, stir fry that some more, then add the carrot and continue stir frying
10. when the vegetables are sweating and changing color and smelling quite nice, add the leftover rice to the wok; mix everything around with the spatula to incorporate, then with the spatula firmly tamp down the rice in the wok
11. let the rice for some short span of time, say several minutes, then, with the spatula, break it up and turn it over, mix it all around again to incorporate, tamp it down, and let it cook again; do this a handful of times, so that all of the grains of rice have a fair shake at making direct, sustained contact with the hot wall of the wok, and so that clumps of rice begin to brown and even blacken and become stiff and brittle
12. when you've tired of that part of the process, with the spatula scrape out from the center of the wok a hollow, mound the rice around the sides, so that you can see the bottom of the wok, and spoon in some more oil in there, and then add to it to the tofu
13. let this sizzle and spatter a bit, then begin to sort of stir it around a bit with the spatula, and finally fold it into the walls of rice mounded around the sides, and fold the rice mounded around the sides into the center, and incorporate everything
14. add the peas, and mix everything to incorporate, and tamp down the rice again as before
15. crank the stove all the way up, just as high as it will allow, and drizzle over the rice the soy sauce and sesame oil
16. let that just cook for maybe a minute, then turn off the stove, give everything a good mix, toss in the scallions, mix once or twice or thrice more, then serve
17. shovel the fried rice into a bowl, top with peanuts, and apply a hearty volume of sriracha