Crafting Articles

The Kitchen Witch

Using Leftovers ~ Fried Rice

We all have leftovers. I have lived with people – men, mostly – who have refused to eat leftovers. But I come from a family who don’t waste anything at all – not food, not clothes, not anything at all – and I am the same way. And honestly – if you throw away food – you’re throwing away money. That’s how I look at it. And I do not like to waste money. Of course – some people think I waste a lot of money – buying books the way I do – but we all have our addictions!

I have a three-day rule – if the cooked food has been in the fridge for more than three days – I don’t eat it anymore. Ever since I had thyroid cancer in 2012 and had radiation therapy, my gut can’t put up with a lot of food that I used to love – once upon a time, I had a “cast-iron stomach” – but those days are long gone. I no longer can eat the hottest chicken wings – I can’t eat deep-fried foods at all. I have to be really careful with tomato sauces – and I love sauce! I get heartburn like you wouldn’t believe – I chew antacids like candy. I can’t eat leftover meats the way I once could – I can’t freeze leftovers and thaw them for later – they upset my stomach. So I have to eat them much quicker than I once would have.

One thing I always have leftover is rice. There’s no way to make a little bit of rice. I’ve tried – it doesn’t cook well if you cut the recipe in half – it’s one of those things. So the smallest amount you can cook is using a cup of uncooked rice and two cups of water, a tablespoon of butter or olive oil and a dash of salt – which will yield three cups cooked rice. I always use an old Revere Ware pan that was my grandmother’s – it makes perfect rice every single time. My sister insists that the Instant Pot makes the best rice. However you cook your rice, if you’re not making it for at least six people, you’re going to have leftovers.

I used to just put rice into soups or into casseroles but in the past few months, I started making fried rice. One of the reasons I started doing this is because I moved out of my old neighborhood and I no longer have a fast-food Chinese restaurant to order from and I wanted to be able to be able to create the fried rice that I used to get with my favorite lunch special. But also – I wanted a way to use up my leftover rice.

Like all stir-fry recipes, the best way to go about this is to have all your vegetables chopped and ready before you start cooking. I like to have a base of garlic, onions, celery and carrots to start with.

I sauté these in olive oil until they are just beginning to get fragrant – you don’t want them to get soft. The trick is to cook them but keep them with a bit of a crunch. So you want a high heat and to keep them moving – stir, stir, stir!

After this, you add your meat, if you’re adding meat. I personally think leftover pork works the best – chicken is second-best. Shrimp is third – but if you’re adding shrimp – I use cooked frozen shrimp – you add that at the end – and it’s best to thaw the shrimp before adding it – I like to remove the tails, since I don’t like pulling out the tails as I’m eating. But that’s just me.

This time, I used leftover pork. I rarely eat pork but every now and again, I have a taste for it. And of course – it’s not necessary to add any meat at all.

Again, you want to have the meat chopped into small pieces before you start the cooking process. This was one small pork chop that was leftover from a previous meal – I had planned to use it for fried rice! I personally think pork works best for fried rice.

 

After you add the pork and you stir that around for a while – stirring in all your good intentions, of course! – add the leftover rice. I never measure – I’m bad that way – but you want about a cup or so of rice. Maybe a cup and a half. You don’t want to crowd the pan.

OK!! LISTEN TO ME!! Especially if you’re using a cast-iron pan like I do! It’s gonna stick! Don’t worry about it! Just keep stirring it! Scrap it up from the bottom if you have to. It’s no big deal.

After I add the rice, I grate in some ginger root. Now – if I was making a normal stir-fry, I would have grated the ginger root at the beginning and sautéed it with the crushed garlic in the olive oil before I added anything else but this is different – I’m not sure why – but it is.

You want a decent piece of ginger root.

Take your grater and grate the ginger root right into the pan.

After this, you can add whatever else you want – I usually add broccoli if I have it – but peas are always good – or baby corn if you got any – or whatever leftover veggies you have. The thing is, you don’t want to have too many things in the pan – because the rice will get soggy and you don’t want that. So keep it simple – keep the vegetables at a minimum.

This is when I add the soy sauce for seasoning – I use San Jay – I think it’s the best – but use whatever brand you are partial to.

After this, I put the cover on the pan to steam the broccoli a little bit – if the broccoli is already cooked, this step can be skipped. I like my broccoli to be crunchy – I like all my stir-fry veggies to be a little crunchy – so the pan doesn’t have to be covered for very long.

And then it’s done!

Wow, you can just about smell how great that is, huh? That ginger and garlic and that rice and veggies fried so perfectly in extra-virgin olive oil – that’s kitchen witchery right there!

All that’s left is the joy of eating it!

Whether you’re making this for yourself or for some friends who stopped over to visit, this is a quick meal – or a snack – that is sure to satisfy. It’s nice and light – plus it uses up those leftovers!

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About the Author:

Polly MacDavid lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic.

Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan but she gets along with a few of the masculine deities. She loves to cook and she is a Bills fan.

She blogs at silverapplequeen.wordpress.com. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.