Prime Cuts

My friend Nicolette Dunn is an amazing home chef and a great friend, this last weekend we shared the responsibility of cooking dinner for everyone. She pulled a recipe from her childhood while I tried new things with the crockpot and chicken. She is guest posting for me today, my post for the chicken will follow in a few days, enjoy.

When most people think of fried rice they think of it as accompanying a Chinese meal.  We don’t usually think out of the to-go box and make it at home as a unique side with an everyday meal.

As a kid, I remember being very excited when we would have a meal with white rice and having some left over at the end of the meal… this almost surely meant we would have my mom’s fried rice with dinner the next day, maybe with some grilled chicken or steak.  When I became old enough to cook for my family I learned how to work the system and cook too much rice for a meal. This way we couldn’t let it go to waste, and I could conveniently point out that the only logical thing to do is have mom make her fried rice with the leftovers.

This fried rice is a nice light side dish or meal that requires very little preparation and just minutes at the stove.  All of these aspects were immensely appealing when we were looking for a side dish to make on a 109 degree day, to accompany Justin’s greatly anticipated Thai chicken dish (recipe to follow).  We needed something light, that wouldn’t compete with the flavors in the chicken and didn’t require much time over a hot stove.  It was decided, mom’s fried rice it was.  It was a perfect fit, inexpensive, light, easy to make and delicious!

Mom’s Fried Rice

Ingredients
4 Cups cooked long grain white rice (2 cups uncooked will yield 4 cooked)
2 Eggs
1 Tbl water
Salt & Pepper (to taste)
5 Slices deli ham
4 Whole green onions
Soy sauce
4-5 Tbl Peanut or Vegetable oil
½ – 1 tsp sesame oil (optional)

Preparation

1. Prepare your rice (one cup of water for every cup of rice) and refrigerate – refrigerating your rice is best before stir frying in order to prevent the starches from breaking down and becoming mushy.
2. Slice ham into ½ inch squares
3. Fine – Medium chop green onions
4. In small bowl, scramble eggs with 1 Tbl water
5. Heat wok on high heat then add 3-4 Tbl oil
6. Reduce heat to med and add eggs
7. Season with salt and pepper
8. Cook on one side then flip
9. Once thoroughly cooked, remove, chop into small pieces and set aside
10. If needed add more oil to pan (enough to coat rice) and reheat wok
11. Reduce heat to med-high and add rice
12. Gently fold rice in oil until it is evenly coated
13. Add sliced ham to rice and stir fry 30-40 seconds
14. Add green onions and stir fry 30-40 seconds
15. Add chopped egg and stir fry for 30-40 seconds
16. Add soy sauce and gently fold in until evenly distributed.

Serve!

If you head over to Justin’s Flickr page you can check out more pictures of this fried rice preparation.

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After a short break from filming, we’re back with brand new episodes of Prime Cuts TV.  On today’s episode Joe shows you how to properly fluff rice.  Though it seems like a simple cooking tip, it is one that is often done wrong.  Not properly fluffing rice can lead to clumpy rice and seasonings/flavorings not being thoroughly mixed.

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