September 16, 2008 Recipe #8 Fried rice

I made this with “Kareem”, a fellow PCV. I’ve never been a huge fan of fried rice, but I think that I like the one we made better than any I’ve gotten from Chinese takeout. It also looks to be an easy source of a balanced meal, so that’s all to the good.

Without further ado:

1 C rice

2 ½ C water

1 large onion

3 medium-sized peppers (we used one red, one green, and one halfway inbetween, which was very aesthetically pleasing)

2 carrots

½ C butter

Soy sauce (to taste)

2 eggs

Put the rice into the water to soak. (You ordinarily only need twice as much water as rice, not 2.5 times as much, but because water boils faster up here at high elevations, we decided to add extra, and it worked out for us.)

Dice the onion, peppers, and carrots.

Put the rice and water on medium heat.

Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a frying pan. Sauté the onions. When they are translucent, add the peppers and carrots. Sauté/stir-fry them in ever-increasing amounts of butter and soy sauce. (Just keep tossing in chunks of butter and splashing in the soy sauce.)

When the vegetables and rice are both mostly al denté, pour any remaining water off the rice and add in the veggies. Toss together over low heat. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring vigorously. Add more soy sauce, butter, or whatever other spices come to hand (Kareem had some dried pepper flakes that were great) to taste. When it’s all soft to the tooth, you’re done.

Serve immediately.

This amount served only the two of us, but we’d been fasting and were huuuungry. I think it should serve three or four people with normal-sized appetites.