Waste Not, Want Not. Or How to Reincarnate Fried Rice
Do you ever find yourself with leftover white rice from your Chinese takeout? Stop! Don’t throw that stuff away! If you keep a well-stocked pantry, you can make delicious fried rice the next day with only a few extra ingredients from the grocery store.
It’s actually best to make fried rice with day-old rice, because it’s easier to get it crispy if the grains are a little dried out. You can even freeze leftover rice if you want to use it later than a day or two after it’s been cooked.
And if you like Asian fare, soy sauce and dark sesame oil should be staples in your pantry. Sesame oil has such an incredible flavor, and you only need a very small amount because it’s so intense.
The day after bringing home and devouring some takeout from South Charleston’s Taste of Asia (man, they’ve got good spring rolls), I assembled these ingredients:
I had everything pictured there on hand, except the ginger root and the frozen shrimp. (Turn up your nose at frozen shrimp? Guess what? The shrimp you get “fresh” at the fish market has been frozen, too. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re landlocked.) I chose to make shrimp fried rice, but you can make it vegetarian or with other meats like chicken, beef, pork, or I suppose even mallard, if you can get your hands on one. (I kid.)
Here’s a pretty good basic recipe from Sara Moulton for fried rice that can easily be tweaked to your liking. Obviously, other meats would take longer to cook than shrimp. I cut down on the amount of peas and added carrots, and I’m sure you can think of other veggies you might want to throw in there. Once you’ve made this dish a few times, you won’t really need a recipe. That’s the beauty of fried rice - just throw in whatever you have lying around, top it off with a little more soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil, garnish with chopped green onions and cilantro, and voila! Behold the beauty of leftovers, taken to a new level:
