Red Fried Rice

Why is day-old rice the best type of rice? Because you can make amazing fried rice with it! And not just any fried rice, but the kind of fried rice that you need when there’s nothing around the kitchen to eat. So, you frequent the kitchen searching the cabinets top and down…you go through the fridge and the freezer multiple times, hoping that something will catch your eye. Hoping that something will be appealing, easy to make, and deliciously okay for your health. Well, it’s there, you just gotta look beyond the frozen food labels and get past your laziness. I know this first hand because I’m lazy AF, so when I see day-old rice in the fridge, I immediately get excited.

First step with anything stir fried…prep all your aromatics and ingredients. I found shitake mushrooms and some cherry tomatoes laying around so I figured I could get mad umami out of both of these main ingredients to make this fried rice legit. 

Heat a wok over high flame and quickly drop down your oil to coat the wok well. Right before its smoking point, use half of the preapared diced onion, 1 garlic, and jalapeno to make fragrant shitake mushrooms. Shitakes absorb oils well, so be patient with them while lowering the heat to medium and let them brown, but not burn. 

After three minutes, set the mushrooms aside and recoat the wok with a little oil again. We’ll use the remaining aromatics now while dumping in the day old rice. Why is day old rice so important? Because the cold air from the fridge will keep the kernels hard and prevent the rice from clumping and sticking together. As you begin to separate the rice by pressing down on it, there’s an important trick I learned about making fried rice and that is, you need to flatten it down and give it a chance to actually fry. This might be something completely behind the scenes at restaurants, but I’ve found this step to be one of the most important steps to execute. Now that your rice is flattened, you will flip over in pieces for about 1-2 minutes each flip. After the first couple of flips, we’ll start the seasoning processes and apply our Ketchup and Maggi Sauce.

I’m not sure what they put into Maggi Sauce, but it’s delicious, pungent, salty, and flavorful.  Repeat the flattening steps and make sure you give the rice time to fry up all these bomb flavors into each rice kernel.  Mushroom Seasoning should help to give the rice a final sprinkle of snap crackle and pop. If you haven’t used this stuff, it can be a touch salty, so be careful and apply with caution. A couple of pinches of this stuff go a long way. When you have a good texture on the rice and the color is where you’d like it to be, throw in all the remaining ingredients and quickly toss. For the tomatoes, you can choose to roast them ahead of time or just quickly warm them in the rice.I wish there was more to share with you on how to make this dish amazing, but there’s really not! You’ve got yourself a simple and flavor packed umami fried rice dish that will jump off of the plate and into your heart to suck all the lifeline out of you like a pure addiction for food. Plant-based food!

Red Fried Rice

• Servings: 2-4
• Time: 30mins
• Difficulty: Easy
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Umami packed fried rice, using shiitake mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.

Ingredients

• 1/2 red onion
• 1 stalk green onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 slices of jalapeno pepper
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3-4 cups fresh shiitake mushroom
• 1.5 cups of day old rice
• 4 tbsp cooking oil
• 1/2 tbsp maggi sauce
• 1/4 cup of ketchup
• 1/4 tsp mushroom seasoning

Directions

1. Prepare and slice all aromatics,cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms
2. Add 1 tbsp of oil to Wok and swirl until close to smoking point. Throw in 2 smashed garlic cloves, 1/4 diced onion and cook for 20 seconds. Add shiitake mushrooms and cook until nicely browned. Set aside.
3. Add 3 tbsp of oil to Wok. Use remaining 1/4 onion and 2 garlic cloves to cook day old rice. Spread out rice and flip every minute to lightly crisp.
4. After 3 minutes, add ketchup and maggi sauce, and repeat process – flattening rice and flipping every minute.
5. After rice is golden brown (3-4 minutes), throw in cherry tomatoes, green onions, and shiitake mushrooms. Fold ingredients into rice and let it fry together.
6. Sprinkle mushroom seasoning to finish.
7. Plate and enjoy!