By Paul Cormier, Salamanders of Kemptville
This is Part 2 of: “We love leftovers”. Why? Because: 1) leftovers give you the opportunity to develop and play around with tasty recipes; and 2) Working with leftovers is great for your budget. The Cormier family is a huge fan of leftovers and often, we plan meals so that we can make use of what is left for take-away lunches or simply another full meal. For example, last week’s Boiled Ham recipe yielded a very tasty Split Pea Soup. Last night, we had a roasted chicken and the leftovers will provide a great treat of Chicken Fried Rice, today’s recipe, which our family has been enjoying forever…
Chicken Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- Whatever cooked chicken you have left from a previous meal, cut into small pieces, bones removed
- Or, 2 large chicken breasts, roasted in the oven till (lightly) done and cut up into small pieces
- 1 large or 2 medium size onions (e.g. Vidalia) and any leftover green onions, all finely sliced and diced
- 3 cloves of garlic or the equivalent, crushed
- 2 teaspoons white granulated sugar
- 2 cups of fresh mushrooms sliced or 2 cans of pieces and stems mushrooms
- Any leftover red or green peppers you might have hanging around in the fridge
- 4 cups of plain white or brown rice, cooked ahead of time
- 3 tablespoons sesame oil
- 2 eggs, beaten with a couple of tablespoons of milk
- A couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce
- A couple of shakes of Tabasco sauce
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- Soya sauce to taste
Preparation
- Melt the butter in a large pan and sweat the onions and garlic on medium heat
- Once sweated, sprinkle the onions and garlic with the sugar to caramelize
- Add the peppers and mushrooms and sweat them as well
- Next, add the chicken chunks, pour in the sesame oil and stir to coat everything
- Fold in all of the cooked rice, one cup at a time
- Stir in your beaten egg and let it poach
- Stir in some Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces
- Sprinkle with black pepper
- Fold in some soya sauce (be careful; it’s very salty, so taste as you go)
- Add a bit of water, stir, cover your pan with a lid and let your Chicken Fried Rice rest a bit.
Just serve up in bowls. To accompany and enhance your Chicken Fried Rice, you may wish to try Grahame’s Brown Oatmeal Bread, newly available and very delicious. You may not want to get it sliced but just tear the loaf apart: we demolished a couple of loaves last week. We are fans!
By the way, our grandson Ayden likes plum sauce as a condiment for his Chicken Fried Rice; I like Hoisin sauce myself. Green Tea is also nice to have, either hot or iced.
Have a great summer preferably without smoke! Best from [email protected].
