Time for a fridge forage.
What do you cook when there’s nothing to cook in the house? Scrambled eggs? Peanut butter toast? Everybody has a favorite go-to meal, the food that they cook when the refrigerator is almost empty. When I was growing up, my father made stir-fried rice.
We always had the basic ingredients for stir-fried rice: rice, ginger, garlic, soy sauce. We usually had frozen peas. And then my father would toss in anything he happened to find leftover in the vegetable bin: celery stalks and carrot nubs, leftover broccoli stalks, bits of onion—everything got diced and thrown in.
He also usually threw in a couple of eggs for protein, and these were my favorite bits: scrambled with the garlic and ginger in the wok at the beginning of the stir-frying, they absorbed all the aromatics and became little flavor bombs hiding in the rice.
Years later, I now realize that trapping the flavor of the garlic and ginger in the eggs was maybe not the smartest cooking technique—it prevents them from fully seasoning everything else—and the recipe below actually suggests scrambling the eggs at the very end, so the little curds stay moist and fluffy when the rice is served. As technically correct as this method is, I still occasionally regress to my father’s technique. You can’t beat childhood taste memories.
When I was a child, stir-fried rice night was a special treat. Now, as an adult, I realize that it was my father’s way of creating something cheap and filling when there was no protein available and we were out of milk. It was also his way of cleaning out the refrigerator.
Understanding this doesn’t make me love this dish any less. As a young adult sometimes trying to feed myself with limited time and resources, it actually makes me appreciate it more.
Below is my version of my father’s stir-fried rice. It’s fairly paired down, and does not include broccoli stalks or bits of left-over cabbage because, at the end of the day, you don’t need to have them to make a great stir-fried rice. But if you DO have them, feel free to throw them in!
Enjoy!
Stir-Fried Rice
(Serves 2)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
2 cups cooked brown rice (from 2/3 cup uncooked)*
5-6 scallions, white parts diced and green parts chopped into inch-long pieces
1 small carrot, diced into pea-sized pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
¾ inch ginger root, peeled and minced
Diamond Crystal kosher salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
½ cup frozen peas
2 eggs
Special Equipment: wok, cast iron, or heavy-bottomed skillet.**
Method
IMPORTANT: Before you start, make sure all your ingredients are prepped and ready to go. Stir-frying is a high-heat, fast-paced cooking method, and once you start, you have to be ready to move quickly.
Heat a large cast-iron skillet (see note 2 above) over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan, then add half of the rice and cook, tossing every minute or so, until starting to crisp, about 3 minutes. Don’t overcook at this stage or the rice will dry out! Remove the rice to a plate, then add 1 tablespoon oil and the remainder of the rice and repeat the process. Remove the second batch of rice to the plate with the first batch.
Add 2 teaspoons oil to the skillet with the diced white scallion and carrot, and ½ teaspoon salt. Stir, tossing, until the vegetables have softened and slightly browned, about 4 minutes. Add minced garlic and ginger and cook another minute, still tossing so they don’t burn.
Add the rice back into the skillet with the soy sauce, green scallion pieces, and peas and toss until vegetables and aromatics are well distributed, about 30 seconds.
Push rice mixture to the edges of the pan, add remaining 1 teaspoon oil to the center of the skillet, and crack in the eggs. Moving quickly, scramble the eggs in the center of the pan until they are set in curds, then toss with the rice around the edges.
Taste and add additional salt or soy sauce to taste.
*The best rice for this dish is just cooked, thoroughly cooled and dried, rice. If you are using day-old rice, make sure to break up any clumps that have formed while it’s been sitting in the refrigerator. If you are using fresh rice, you may want to spread it out on a sheet pan to release excess moisture and steam, which will prevent it from frying properly. For more on how to properly cook rice, check out my Explore: Rice post!
**The traditional pan to use for this dish is, of course, a wok. If you don’t have one, choose a large, heavy-bottom skillet or pan with high sides. Cast-iron is best because it will get the hottest, and you want your surface to be as hot as possible, to simulate the high temperatures of the wok.
Originally posted April 8, 2020
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