Was starving and it would be faster for me to cook something up than to go out to my latest favorite breakfast place for lunch.
I have such a variety of leftovers in my fridge, it seems a waste to go out and pay for something–and wait for service. Roast pork (char siu), lots of salad, avo and tomato, two different kinds of rice. I thought I had cooked chicken. Someone ate it!
Oh, I forgot. There’s leftover roast beef dinner from Whole Foods. Perfect for fried rice. I could fry it with the mushroom from my barbecue and eat it with salad but Beef With Vegetable Fried Rice, something I learned from Taiwan, is better. We in Singapore don’t usually put beef in our fried rice.
Oh, there’s onion and garlic already peeled. I quickly washed and chopped up three bunches of Shanghai cabbage which I’d rather add to fried rice than lettuce. In Taiwan they use bai cai in this dish. I cut the beef into pieces the size of scrabble tiles.
Fried rice is one of the home-cooked dishes many Chinese children first learn to make. It was my son Russ’s first attempt at cooking. He loved adding soy sauce to it, which caramelized the pan and caused the kitchen to smell very Chinese! His rice had a black tinge but he loved it.
There are dozens of ways to make fried rice. You can throw in whatever you want as long as you can stomach the combination. Because I threw in everything that my roast beef dinner had–string beans with onion, and a rice pilaf, I felt there was enough stuff in the fried rice. The mushroom and char siu can be eaten another time. I didn’t want so many contrasting flavors.
It took me less than 20 minutes to get lunch on the table.
Beef With Vegetable Fried Rice
Serves 2
Preparation time: 5-8 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
3 tablespoons oil
¼ cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 small bunches Shanghai cabbage, chopped (about 1 cup)
5-6 ounces leftover cooked steak, thinly sliced
3 cups leftover cooked rice
Salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
White pepper
Heat half the oil in wok or frying pan. Add half the onion and garlic and fry till soften. Add Shanghai cabbage and fry for 1 minute. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and toss well. Remove vegetable from pan and place in a dish.
In pan, heat and add remaining oil. Heat oil and add beef, and fry beef for 30 seconds. Add rice, and toss to mix well. Add salt and soy sauce, lower heat to medium and fry to soften rice. When rice is heated through, transfer to serving dish. Garnish with white pepper.
NOTES
–Fried rice is best cooked with leftover rice. If rice is chilled and stuck together, press it down with the back of a spatula as you are frying it. Don’t poke at it and break the rice into teeny pieces; it looks ugly when served. If it is really packed together, sprinkle a little–very little–water to soften. Lower the heat if you need more time to do this. That way you won’t burn the ingredients.
Season rice with salt. If using soy sauce, sprinkle it over the rice. If you pour the soy sauce on the hot pan, it may burn.
–You can also do this with uncooked beef, about 5-6 ounces. Just slice the beef into short strips, or small slices. Marinate with 1 tablespoon soy sauce and dash of pepper. Fry beef in oil and add the rice after the beef is seared.
