FRIED RICE + HONEY CHILLI POTATOES

Here’s the first in our series of ‘Chop-Chop Chow’. We have been getting requests to post recipes of quick and easy meals. It is easy to whip up a quick meal these days with all the gadgets available for quick and easy chopping ( I also see chopped vegetables being sold at some stores) and also with the availability of varied sauces, mixes and condiments that just need to be added to the main ingredient, poof, the meal is ready.

I decided to make fried rice. Husband and I love Chinese. I have been experimenting with fried rice and am still on the lookout for that “special” ingredient that makes fried rice taste like the way it does in restaurants. I know they use Ajinomoto (monosodium glutamate) at restaurants that gives that added flavour but I do not like using it. The recipe given below is for the fried rice that I usually make. But this time, I used a readymade Schezwan sauce. So instead of using the combo of soy sauce and ketchup, I just had to mix the rice with the Schezwan sauce (hence that colour)

I wouldn't recommend that 'Chinese Seasoning" 

As I was preparing the fried rice, I realised we needed an accompaniment to go along with it and decided to make Honey Chilli Potatoes.  These are recipes that I don’t have written in my book, so there is no fixed quantity of the ingredients used. It would vary depending on your taste.

FRIED RICE WITH HONEY CHILLI POTATOES (Serves 2)

FRIED RICE

Ingredients:

Cooked rice – 3 cups

Finely chopped onion – 1 (large)

Finely chopped Capsicum – ½ cup

Sliced Mushroom – 200 gms

Ground Garlic – 4-5 cloves

Vinegar – 1 tbsp

Soy Sauce -  2 tbsp

Tomato Ketchup – 3 tbsp  

Pepper – 2 tbsp

Salt – as per taste

Eggs – 2 (optional)

Method:

1.      Separate the rice grain with a fork and then fluff it up. Keep aside. 

2.      In a pan, cook the chopped onions till they turn pinkinsh brown.

3.      Add garlic and sauté.

4.   On high flame, add the mushrooms and cook until the water that it leaves is completely evaporated and the mushrooms have browned a bit. Add the capsicum and sauté for a bit.

5.     Add the cooked rice to the vegetables.

6.   To this add the soy sauce, ketchup and vinegar and stir until the rice is coated with these sauces.

7.      Add salt and sprinkle pepper at the end.

8.      Scramble the eggs separately and add to the fried rice.

HONEY CHILLI POTATOES

Ingredients:

Boiled Potatoes – 2 (large)

Chopped garlic – 4-5 cloves

Ground garlic- 4-5 cloves

Finely chopped Red chilli/Chilli powder – 1 tsp

Corn flour – 2 tbsp

Pureed tomato chilli sauce/ Sweet Chilli sauce – 1 tbsp

Vinegar – 1 tsp

Honey – 1 tbsp

Sesame seeds – 1 tsp

Method:

1.      Boil potatoes until almost done. Do not boil them until they are soft/squishy

2.      Once cooled, slice them.

3.     In a bowl, mix together the ground garlic, red chillies (I didn’t have red chillies, so I added chilli powder), corn flour and salt. Add a little water and make a thick paste. (Adjust the quantity of corn flour accordingly) Add the sliced potatoes and toss until mixture coats them.

4.    Heat oil in a frying pan over medium flame and fry the potatoes until they turn crispy.  Remove the potatoes from the pan and set aside on an absorbent paper.

5.   To the same pan, add the chopped garlic and sesame seeds and sauté for a minute.

6.    Add the potatoes and drizzle vinegar, chilli sauce and honey over the potatoes and toss well until fully coated. Turn off the heat.

7.     Done.

Recipe notes:

• ·     Day old rice is the best to make fried rice. I used freshly cooked rice and that turned out fine too.
•         You may add carrots, beans, cabbage and other vegetables to your fried rice. Just maintain the order while stir frying the vegetables. Vegetables that take longer to cook go in first. Just cook them all on high flame.
•     I have mentioned the quantity of the ingredients for the convenience of the reader but I just add them approximately to suit our taste.
•     I didn’t have most of the ingredients for the honey chilli potatoes. So I either skipped or substituted the ingredients as shown in the list of ingredients (I skipped the sesame seeds) and the dish still turned out great.
•       You need not deep fry the potatoes. I shallow fried them.
•       You could reduce/increase the quantity of garlic, chilly, honey to suit your taste.