My family and I are pretend-Asians. Evidence: we live in San Gabriel, CA.
Last year when I took Asian American Race Relations,
I was shocked at how much my professor knew about the city I grew up in.
Apparently, the San Gabriel Valley is one of the most well-known Asian ethnoburbs
--which is a suburban residential and business area with a significant
concentration of a particular ethnic minority population-- in the state.
I have been going to school in Santa Barbara for almost three years now
and I am going to be completely honest: the thing I miss most about San Gabriel is
A S I A N F O O D ! ! !
My God, Santa Barbara is definitely lacking in that area.
I mean, IV has Little Asia (blandest Asian food I've ever eaten),
some white-washed sushi places (the best one used to blast hip hop and
was run by an all black/hispanic staff; it is now closed), and
even some Pho places (not really a Pho kind of girl...).
I am constantly dreaming about:
Newport Seafood's flavorful kung pao chicken,
Tokyo Lobby's crunchy shrimp tempura,
President Thai's delicious pad see ew,
and Din Tai Fung's juicy pork dumplings.
But if you know me at all, you know that
my biggest Asian-food obsession is fried rice ♥
I love it. I don't know why, I just love it.
When you think about it, its just a simple side dish
but I think it always seemed magical/mysterious
to me because my family never made it. I remember I used to
get so excited when Señora Drew threw parties in my 10th grade
spanish class because that meant one of my
beloved classmates would be bringing fried rice
(shoutout to Han Phan, whose mother makes the
most delicious fried rice I have ever had, to date).
And that, my friends, is why I decided to accomplish goal
#001: Make fried rice
Did you notice that it is the first thing on my list? Haha :)
I noticed that I had the basic ingredients yesterday
so I looked up some simple recipes online and started cooking away!
Basically what I did is:
boiled and drained chopped carrots & peas,
sautéed some shrimp,
threw the veggies on top of the shrimp,
scrambled two eggs on top of that mixture,
added the rice to the mixture,
and then let it cook for a bit with some soy sauce.
The result was actually pretty good,
but not the standard of excellence I usually find in fried rice.
I don't think I "fried" it enough-- the texture was kind of off.
I also feel like I was missing some ingredient...
Anyway, this is a plea for help from all my
friends that have a tasty fried-rice recipe.
Can I have it? Can I have it? Can I have it?
Can I have it? Can I have it? Can I have it?
Can I have it? Can I have it? Can I have it?
(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTFZyl7hfBw)
*Chris Tizzle and Kat Van, I'm looking at you...
facebook stalking tells me that you may know a
thing or two about making fried rice.
Can you help a sister out?
♥
3 comments:
For my version of shrimp fried rice you'll need the following ingredients:
- day-old jasmine rice (fresh rice has too much moisture. too clumpy and mushy)
- minced garlic
- minced ginger
- dark soy sauce
- chopped carrots and green peas
- chopped onion
- 2 eggs
- peanut oil
- half dozen shrimp, deveined and shells/tail removed
- minced green onion
- salt and pepper
- hoisin sauce or brown sugar or chicken bouillon cubes
- garlic-chili paste (sriracha)
key to the dish: fried rice is comprised of a clusterfuck of ingredients that must be cooked separately before mixing together. if you toss in everything at once, your rice will be all mush and no cr00sh.
1) drizzle some peanut oil into a frying pan. let the pan get hot as hell
2) toss in a 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic and ginger each
3) wait for the garlic to brown and toss in your raw shrimp.
4) let it cook until it's almost turned completely pink and remove from the pan onto a plate.
5) using the same pan, fry your eggs. scramble 'em. like the shrimp, cook 'em half-done. the eggs should be still a little runny. (it's cause they're going to be cooked some more and you don't want them to be overdone.) remove from the pan and onto another plate.
6) put some more peanut oil onto the pan or a wok if you've got one. just anticipate enough room in the pan for all the ingredients.
- toss in 2 teaspoons each of garlic and ginger. i like using a lot of ginger but omit some... if you're a fucking pussy.
- let the shit brown before adding your finely diced onions. let it get nearly translucent.
- now add the rice, and work out all the clumps. try and do this with the least amount of trauma to the rice. the more you poke at it, the more gluten becomes released and the starchier the dish becomes.
- reintroduce the runny scrambled eggs and the cooked shrimp to the wok.
- pour some soy sauce evenly over the rice mixture.
- sprinkle some chicken bouillon/pour in some hoisin sauce (use sparingly or else it'll be too sweet)
- try and get a nice even composition by mixing the rice and shrimp into the rice.
- add carrots and peas
- once it's been mixed let it cook. don't touch it or poke at it for a good while.
- then remove the rice from the pan onto a plate, add some pepper and garnish with the green onion.
bon appetite
Wawaweewa!
You made me want asian food... and I love fried rice and pad see ew. Thanks Cella now I'm hungry again :P
<3 Lex
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