Vegetable Fried Rice

I was cleaning the refrigerator this weekend, and hoping to use some overlooked stuff at the back to cook dinner. Out came some spring onions and some left over rice from last night. That just spelt one thing: making vegetable fried rice...

This is partly Indian and party Chinese cuisine, almost a roadside favorite on the streets on Mumbai. I gave it a shot the first time, and it turned out really well. What surprised me is how little effort and time it took.

Spicy:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1/4 onion
  
• About 5 strings of spring onions
• 1 medium sized carrot
• A small piece of capsicum (bell pepper)
• 1/2 cup cabbage
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• A pinch of garlic powder
  

Make sure the rice is cooked and well cooled. Warm rice shall not mix properly and is liable to get mashed easily. Also, sticky rice is not a good choice for the recipe. Leftover rice works great.

First heat the oil in a wok or non-stick pan at medium heat. Cut the onion thin and long, and saute it in the oil for a few minutes. Add the soy sauce, and stir for a minute more.

The carrot, capsicum and cabbage needs to be grated / cut into thin and long pieces. remember, the idea is to do a stir fry with these vegetables, so thin is good. Spring onion is simple to cut: just take over the outermost leaf off, and then chop the head of the root and the top of the leaves. Cut whatever is left (the long stem plus the onion) into small pieces. Add of these to the pan, and fry for a while. If the oil seems to be low, add some more. Add the salt, pepper and garlic powder. Fry for about 4 minutes.

Now add the rice and mix well. Take care not to beat the rice down, mix them with the vegetables gently. Make sure however, everything is mixed well. You may want to add a tbsp of soy sauce more at this point. Fry for another 3-5 minutes, and your rice should be ready.

Curd Rice

Okay, so I added extra curd in the rice. And the picture does not look all that appealing. But, the rice came out pretty decent in terms of taste... Try it.

Spice:


Ingredients:

• 1 cup Basmati / Long grain rice
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cup curd / Plain yogurt
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon Oil
• 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
• 5 - 7 curry leaves
• 1 green chilli chopped (optional)
• 2 teaspoons urad + chana daal
• 1 teaspoon salt
  

Wash the rice thoroughly. Cook the rice and water in a pan or a rice cooker, and keep the cooked rice aside to cool down.

In a separate pan, heat the Oil on a medium flame and add the daal & mustard seeds to it. When the seeds begin to splutter, add the curry leaves, daal, green chillies and the salt. Saute for 3 - 4 minutes.

Now, turn off the heat, and add the rice. Mix thoroughly and cook for a couple of minutes on a low flame, stirring constantly. Be careful while mixing the rice with the oily mixture, if the rice is just cooked, you might end up pressing the soft rice too much. This results in a lump formation within the rice.

Just before serving / consuming, add the milk and the the curd and mix thoroughly again without any heat.

Enjoy (or call Pizza Hut)