Fried Rice

Fried rice is one of my favourite things to eat. My friend taught me how to make it back in high school and I've made it many times since then. Recently I've started to eat more healthy, as some of you know, so I wanted to try using brown rice instead of white rice. I found a recipe for pineapple fried rice in Real Vegetarian Thai (my first recipe out of that book). I was really excited! But in the end, it really did not turn out so well. It was fine and it was edible, but I know that as much as I want to use brown rice for fried rice, I really should be using the evil white rice. Or maybe brown basmati rice? Using brown rice to make fried rice results in more of a gooey rice dish, almost like risotto actually (though not that creamy). Also, I tried not to use as much oil as I used to and that doesn't really work for fried rice either. Anyway, rather than post the pineapple fried rice recipe, I will give you my recipe for fried rice, and let this be a cautionary tale! Simple and delicious and I'm sure many of you don't need a recipe for this. But if you're like I was and need a recipe, here's an easy starting point for. For me, the key is adding lots of onions because I love the way it flavours the fried rice. I don't add any soy sauce or sesame oil or anything, though of course you can do that.

Fried Rice
Serves 1 (easily doubled, quadrupled, etc)

2 cups cold cooked white rice
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup of chopped veggies (including lots of onions)
salt & pepper
4 tablespoons oil

Heat the oil in a skillet at medium high heat. Once hot, add the veggies and sautee until onions are soft (or slightly caramelized, whatever you like). Add the cold rice and stir everything up. Once the rice is heated through and has browned a little bit (I like the browned bits, if you don't then just don't cook it as long). Once the rice and veggies are cooked to the point you want them to be at, pour the beaten egg (or add two eggs if you want lots of eggs) over the rice/veggie mixture. Stir everything up together quickly so the egg is well dispersed. Once the egg is cooked (a minute or two), you're done! I like adding cashews too.