Fried Rice

So my Dad's girlfriend bought me a cookbook for Christmas; can't remember the name of it, but the theme of the book is recipes that only require five ingredients. There are a lot of cool options in the book, but I actually used it for the first time over the weekend. I made fried rice, and it, surprisingly, turned out pretty well.

More surprising than the result, though, is how quickly everything came together. I started off by preparing two cups of white rice; this was easily the longest part of the entire process, as anybody who's ever made rice can attest to. It took, like, twenty minutes, which is the norm for cooking rice.

Once the rice was prepared, I set it aside and started to make scrambled eggs, which the recipe called for. I used a thai red chili paste (1.5 teaspoons) and a little bit of butter to grease the bottom of the pan, and fried the scrambled eggs (there were three of them) up. The recipe called for a specific method for the eggs, but I just made them the way I always do: keep the heat at a medium level and use a spatula to keep them constantly moving to avoid getting burnt. Once they were a solid consistancy, I took them off the skillet.

I added a bit more chilli paste (1 teaspoon, even though the recipe called for .5... I like spicy food, so I added a bit extra) and a bit of canola oil to the same skillet that I used to scramble the eggs, and let everything heat up for a moment. Then I added probably a half pound to a pound of chicken, chopped into little pieces, and cooked it up in the pan. Once the chicken was thoroughly cooked, I added the rice that I made in the beginning to the skillet, and started to stir (I wish I had a wok at hand, but I don't have one in my apartment). Once the rice took on the color of the chili paste (red), I let it sit for about five minutes. Finally, I added the egg (sliced into thin pieces), one sliced avocado and some diced cilantro to season it, and stirred everything together. The cilantro and avocado made it quite good.

The final product was solid, but it wasn't exactly "fried" rice. There was definitely a layer at the bottom of the dish that was fried by sitting directly on the skillet top, but the dish as a whole didn't totally take on this consistency. I'm not really sure how I'd be able to get the rice to fry through totally; I suppose if I kept stirring it might take the form I want, but that would take a lot more time.

All in all though, it was incredibly tasty; all of my friends liked it, as did I. Easy, tasty, fun to make - but most importantly, different than what I usually make. I'm glad I tried it, and will definitely try it again.