Fried Rice is something that we eat in my family all the time. I have been cooking it since I was probably around 12 or 13 years old. Fried rice is another dish that I learned how to make from my step- mother, Van. She is an amazing cook and is also the person responsible for my love of and ability to cook Asian dishes. However, the fact that my Father's side of the family lived in the mid-west when I was young limited the number of available authentic ingredients. This of course also put a limit on my learning about these ingredients. Van would tell me about some of the things her mother used or some of the ingredients she wished she could find, but they were simply not available.
Fortunately for me, I live in a big city now and can get just about anything I want without even driving very far and there's always the Internet. Not that fried rice has any of these exotic, hard to find ingredients, but it was during a trip to my local Asian market that this recipe was perfected and made ready to share with you. About a month ago, my husband and I were at Lee Lee's Asian Market (with the kids) and I got into a very long and wonderful conversation with this little old Chinese woman. I'm not sure exactly why, but I always end up talking to people I don't know when I go grocery shopping. She totally reminded me of a Chinese version of my own Grandmother with an obvious love of cooking and a passion for the right ingredients. She walked with me around the store showing me all of her favorite things to use and pointing out the mistakes in my cart. It was pretty awesome, at least for a food nerd like me! When we came to the sausages, she pointed out a sweet Chinese sausage that she puts in her fried rice. All of a sudden I had a flash back of me cooking fried rice with my step-mother and her saying (with a very heavy Thai accent) "It never tastes right because you can't get the sweet sausage anywhere around here". So here it is, my version of fried rice, including the sweet sausage that has been missing all these years!
Ingredients
1/2 c oyster sauce
1 1/2 lb chicken marinated
3 c uncooked rice
2 1/2 c onions small dice (1/4" pieces or so, it doesn't have to be perfect)
1 Tbls ginger minced
1 Tbls garlic minced
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 sweet Chinese sausage links
10 oz frozen peas
3 Tbls soy sauce
Instructions
1. place your chicken in a gallon size baggie or a large bowl with the oyster sauce and allow to marinate for 2-3 hours
2. cook your rice in a rice cooker, if you do not have a rice cooker, prepare it on the stove
3. spread the cooked rice onto a sheet pan (cookie sheet) and allow to cool for 30-40 minutes stirring once or twice
4. allow the rice to set an additional 30 minutes to dry out a little
*if you skip step 3 and 4 you may end up with goopy sticky clumpy rice at the end - not so yummy, I have also heard to use "day old rice" but have never done this myself
5. saute the onion, ginger, and garlic together with the salt and pepper until the onions are translucent (this is called sweating the onions in a professional kitchen)
6. add the chicken and sausage into the mixture and cook until the chicken is done
7. add the peas and cook until they have a bright color, about 2 minutes if you added them frozen
8. lower your heat to med, add the rice, fold two or three times
9. pour the soy sauce on top - try to pour evenly across the whole top
10. cook the rice until heated through (about 2-3 minutes), folding every minute or so
*a note about frozen veggies - I use frozen veggies in a couple of my recipes. You may be surprised to hear this, but if you are using a reputable brand, they usually have a high nutrition content. Sometimes they even have higher vitamin levels then fresh depending on how long the fresh vegetables have been off of their plant. Thanks to IQF (individual quick freezing) that is now done almost all the time, the veggies retain more of the vitamins and minerals you want. They are also generally frozen the day that they're harvested, in some cases it can be within hours of harvest. This is huge as far as nutrition. I would advise checking the source of your frozen veggies if this is a concern for you.
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