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Rice

Beef Basil Fried Rice

Jul 21st, 2010
by dave.
6 comments

Basil Fried Rice

When cooking rice for meals, I’ve always stayed on the greedier side. That is, cooking more rice and then figuring out what to do with the leftovers. You see, I scarf the stuff down like there’s no tomorrow (just a little soy/sugar or rice seasoning and that can be a meal!) but lately I’ve been trying to do a little bit more portion control. Now that hasn’t stopped me from cooking too much rice, now I just have to figure out something to do with it afterward.

Usually I just cook something else and heat up the leftovers but one thing I try my hand at from time to time is fried rice. Again, one of the most important steps is to refrigerate the rice, overnight would be best. Still, I have a habit of overcooking the leftover rice in the pan but my technique has gotten better. You really only need to warm the rice up and toss it around for about a minute to break up the rice clumps and to mix everything together. More to the point, the rice and sauce go in after everything else is cooked. And remember, don’t overfill the pan!

I found a great recipe at Jam’s Thai Food a little while back and since it looked tasty, I decided to give it the ole good faith effort. Ended up using a little bit more sauce mix because I had so much rice and a pound of beef to use, it wound up a little salty but that was alright, I don’t mind it being that way. Thanks Jam!

Beef Basil Fried Rice

Time: 10 – 15 minutes
Serves : 4 – 6

Recipe adapted from Jam’s Thai Food

Ingredients:
– 2 – 3 qts of cooked rice, refrigerated overnight
– 3/4 to 1 lb Beef, sliced (Or Chicken, Pork, shrimps, or a combo)
– 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced thin
– 1/2 medium onion, chopped
– 2 – 3 tbsp fish sauce
– 3 – 4 tbsp soy sauce
– 1 tbsp sugar
– 1 – 1 1/2 cups Fresh Thai Basil leaves, washed
– 3 – 4 Thai Chillies, minced
– 1 shallot, minced
– 3 – 4 cloves garlic, minced
– A little soy sauce and cornstarch, for marinating (3-4 tbsp soy sauce w/ 1 tbsp starch)
Method:
1. Marinate the beef in some soy sauce and cornstarch for about 15-30 minutes.
2. Mix the Chillies, shallots, and garlic together. If you have a food processor, you can put the mix through to make a paste.
3. Heat a frying pan or wok over medium heat. Add some vegetable oil and then the paste. Stir and let cook for 30 seconds.
4. Add the beef into the pan with a small dash of fish sauce and soy sauce. This will give the meat a little bit more flavor. Stir fry about a minute.
5. Add in the pepper and onions, stir fry another minute or so until the beef is cooked.
6. Add the rice in along with the rest of the sauce (fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar). Mix well and stir fry for about a minute.
7. Add in the basil leaves, stir fry another minute and then serve with fried eggs (however you like your eggs is fine)

Stir-fried Rice Cakes

Dec 2nd, 2009
by dave.
3 comments

Stir Fried Rice Cake

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Spent a few days back in NJ with the family and had a nice relaxing weekend, caught up on a ton of sleep, just what I needed. We had a pretty traditional Thanksgiving meal with turkey, roasted root veggies, salad, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and my mom’s special string beans. Not to mention what you can do with leftovers, day after Turkey Congee is always a huge hit!

I’d like to try my hand at cooking a Thanksgiving dinner sometime, maybe that’s a project for next year. But it’s enough work for me to just cook for a couple people, I couldn’t imagine trying to cook for 10+!

But anyway, back to what I’m posting about today =P

Being that noodles are one of my favorite dishes to eat (any kind of noodle really), I couldn’t believe that I haven’t had rice cakes until just a couple years ago! Rice cakes (Nian gao) are thicker slices of pressed rice noodle, almost like diagonally sliced carrots (best analogy I could come up with…really!). But anyway, they’ve got a more chewy texture to them and they soak up sauce very nicely, and are ridiculously easy to cook with.

You can buy rice cakes in packages from your local Asian food market. This time, I had rice cakes from H-mart, a Korean grocery store up in Burlington, MA.

One of the local restaurants in the Boston area, Shanghai Gate, prepares rice cakes a couple different ways, both of which are excellent. I’ve been trying to figure out one of their versions, the sliced rice cake with pork, and sauce, and some green vegetable I couldn’t figure out. So I wanted to go back and pay closer attention next time =)

But for today, I scoured online to find a good recipe to use and came up with this one from use real butter. It looked really good (and I’d been looking for an excuse to use some napa cabbage I picked up at Russo’s) so off I went.

Stir-fried Rice Cakes

20 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 pounds rice cakes (prepared according to package)
1 pound pork sirloin, cut into matchsticks
1/2 head of napa cabbage, chopped thinly
5 scallions, julienned
1 1/2 inch piece ginger, julienned
5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
5 tbsp canola oil
Salt and white pepper to taste
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
2 cups chicken broth (About 1 can)

Method:
1. Mix the pork, soy sauce, sesame oil, and cornstarch together until the pork is evenly coated. Set aside.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil, half of the ginger and half of the scallions over high heat. After about 30 seconds to a minute, add the cabbage and stir fry. Add some salt and white pepper.
3. When the cabbage is almost cooked, remove from wok and set aside.
4. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the wok and add the rest of the ginger and scallions.
5. When the ginger and onions sizzle, add the pork and stir fry until the meat is nearly cooked through.
6. Add the cabbage back into the pot and stir to mix.
7. Add the rice cakes and along with a cup of chicken broth. Add more broth as needed or desired.
8. Continue to stir fry to keep the rice cakes from sticking. Add more salt or white pepper as necessary.

Note : The rice cakes are done when they’re slightly chewy but with no crunch and are firm but not quite mushy.

Dukboki – Rice Cakes in Red pepper sauce

Oct 14th, 2009
by dave.
No comments yet

Dukboki

So I’m now on a bit of a diet. I mean, that’s not necessarily going to stop me from eating what I want, but maybe just less of it. Just will have to work out more if I’m going to hit my goals =P

Here’s another pretty quick meal if you have the ingredients on hand. I bought two kinds of rice cakes at H-mart last week with the intention of making a couple different dishes. Dukboki is something I get every now and then at Misono Wok at Super 88 (Usually with ramen or japche mixed in there too) but I’ve never really had a whole ton of success making it myself. But then I stumbled on a couple nice cookbooks and an archived post on My Korean Kitchen and it was off to the races.

The main ingredient needed for the sauce (and it’s used a lot in Korean cooking, I’ve found) is Gochujang paste, or hot pepper paste. Gochujang mixed with a few other household ingredients nets a really tasty sauce that can be used in a whole bunch of different stir-fry dishes. So now I keep a tin of the stuff in my fridge at all times, just in case I need to put something together in a hurry (and without any kind of meal planning in advance).

Dukboki – Rice Cakes in Red pepper sauce

Time : 20 minutes
Serves : 4
Ingredients:
- 1 – 2 lbs rice cakes
- 3-4 fish cakes, sliced
- 1 onion, sliced
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 2-3 scallions, chopped
- 1/2 cup water
- Optional : Hot dog, hard boiled eggs, ramen, cellophane noodles
- Sesame seeds for garnish

Gochujang seasoning sauce:
- 4 tbsp Gochujang
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp Korean chili powder
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

Method:
1. Boil rice cakes as instructions dictate. Usually a couple minutes to soften them up a little.
2. Heat a wok over high heat, add some oil, toss in the onions and green peppers and stir-fry for a few minutes.
3. Add in everything else but the scallions. Mix well. Stir fry for another 4-5 minutes or so.
4. Add in the scallions, give a final few stirs, then serve with some sesame seeds.

Fried Rice

Feb 1st, 2009
by dave.
No comments yet

Fried Rice

Fried Rice was one of those dishes I could never master, or even figure out adequately. The rice always came out a bit mushy and wasn’t the fluffy mix that I’d gotten at restaurants. But after several failed attempts, I was given a couple golden tips that I wish I’d thought of before!

The first tip is that rice cooked the day before and refrigerated overnight is ideal. Refrigeration helps dry out the rice and makes it easier to break apart and mix well with the other ingredients. The other tip is choosing the rice itself. Jasmine rice or other long grained rice are best. I’d tried using japanese rice before and that did not turn out well at all. Reason is that the long grained rice tends to be on the drier side as well and doesn’t stick together quite as much as the japanese rice.

Then, I also found a great recipe on Rasa Malaysia, one of my favorite food blogs, that was closest to the versions that I’ve had at many restaurants and homes.

With these tips (and recipe) in hand and a very grumbly stomach, I was able to create a modest copy of what you can get in most Chinese restaurants…enjoy!

Fried Rice

Serves 4-6
35 minute prep, 10 minute cooking

Ingredients:
- 4 cups cooked rice (refrigerated overnight)
- 1 boneless chicken breast, cubed
- 2 Chinese sausage (lap cheorng), diced
- ¼ lb medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, chopped
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- ½ tbsp light soy sauce
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp white pepper
- ¼ tbsp dark sweet soy sauce (Ketjap Manis)
- ½ cup frozen green peas/carrots
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 eggs, beaten

Method:
1. Heat a wok with the canola oil. Toss in garlic, sauté until aromatic.
2. Add chicken and shrimp, stir fry until more than half cooked. Season with salt, add the Chinese sausage and the onion.
3. Add in cold rice and stir well with the ingredients. Add in the soy sauce, fish sauce, sweet soy sauce, white pepper and toss well.
4. Quickly add in frozen peas/carrots, toss well with the rice
5. Clear some space in the middle of the wok and add in the beaten eggs. Wait for about 30-45 seconds, and then begin tossing the rice with the egg to get it spread out and mixed with the rice.