Rating: 💋 💋 💋
Another episode featuring me cooking, woohoo!
For this week's dinner, I made shrimp fried rice. Mostly what is going on here is, I bought rice a month ago and, for the sake of economy, I am experimenting with all of my rice recipes to get through it. I love rice so this is cool, plus rice bowls are so easy to make and reheat throughout the week. In this case, I tried a dish I have never had before anywhere- shrimp fried rice. I admit, I cheated a bit, because the recipe calls for white rice and I used brown. Brown is what I had though (I personally prefer it for its flavor) and if you seriously think I was gonna buy white rice when I have a full container full of brown, then clearly you don't know me.
So modify we did, and while the rice chilled out in its thirty-minute jacuzzi (writing this at work right now, I'm honestly so jealous), I got to chopping.
I started off with the scallion garnish, cutting two stalks into crisp little circles. From there, I shaved the carrots and then shopped them up. The recipe called for finely chopped, so I wasn't sure if that meant spaghetti strips or skinny disks. Disks were easier because I do not have a proper vegetable peeler yet, so that's what I did. There is just no need to make your life harder than it has to be if no one is even asking you to. Afterwards, I cut the green bell pepper into skinny strips, and then chopped those down into smaller squares. Once everything was chopped and the rice was far enough along in its bath - because timing is everything- I heated the vegetable oil in a skillet, then added two tablespoons of minced garlic.
Once the garlic had heated for the appropriate amount of time and I had mixed it well with the oil, I scraped the carrots and pepper into the skillet and sauteed them three minutes before adding the shrimp.
And then I realized I had a problem. I do not have a wok, I just have a normal-sized pan. I had a sinking feeling that if the pan was already so overfull with the shrimp and veg, no way would the peas and rice be able to survive alongside them in order to make the next step a success.
What to do, what to do?
Get crafty, my ladies and gents, that's what.
I strained the rice and put the lid on its pot so it could steam and fluff for ten minutes. (Low-key, brown rice is such a diva, so finicky.) While that primping was happening, I pulled out a larger pot and, when the rice was fluffy enough, I added the rice, a cup of peas, and two tablespoons each of soy and sesame oil to the larger pot. Then, I scooped the shrimp and vegetables into the large pot and stirred it all around really well so it could mix well, now without spilling all over the edges of a too-small pan. I used the now-empty skillet to cook the whisked egg, stirring it repeatedly so it would clump properly into little pieces. Once that was set - and it took what felt like a while (but properly I was just nervous because the kitchen tool issue raised my insecurities), maybe three to four minutes - I slowly started adding the rice, shrimp, and veg mixture back into the pan, folding the egg in around it. It would've been too difficult to mix together in the pan from the get-go, but now that only the egg had to be incorporated, it was much easier to create a fried rice mountain and wiggle the egg into separate areas before calling it a day.
I breathed a great sigh of relief when it was finished, then split the dish between one bowl and three Tupperware containers before garnishing with scallions and soy. I knowww the recipe calls for Sriracha, and I like Sriracha, but I don't currently have a lot of recipes lined up that call for it and I didn't feel like buying another ingredient. Plus, I don't love it THAT much. Soy is just as good.
Verdict was, it was okay. Everything was cooked well, the flavors were good, and my last minute decision to throw on some sesame seeds made me very happy. I understand I did not follow the recipe one hundred percent, so it is probably my fault this was not a favorite. Then again, thinking about the changes I made, I don't think following it to a T would have made me like the dish anymore. I stand by my choices. There probably could have been something added to make the dish more exciting, but I have yet to figure out what it is. I will think on it over the course of the week as I reheat these leftovers at work. I will say, I looked especially forward to all the bites with egg and scallion, so those are musts. Meanwhile, I think I am still looking for the perfect Shrimp Fried Rice recipe for me.
I'll keep looking. Try this one out for yourself and see if it hits the spot, or wait for my retry. Sorry to be so lukewarm ahh!
Have a good night!
XX,
MK
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