egg fried rice and bits

using up: cold pot roast beef, spring onions, pepper, cucumber, broccoli

I love egg fried rice – we always have it when we have a Chinese takeaway.  Not that we’ve had a Chinese takeaway in years, but we always did.

I don’t know why I’ve never made it before – partly, I guess, because you have to have cold, cooked rice, and I never thought about it in time (like the indian lentil bread I want to make, which needs starting two days before I think “Oh, that’d be nice”). However, last week, I was organised and cooked some rice, and we had egg fried rice with a thai veg curry.  It was lovely, so I resolved to do something more interesting.  And yesterday lunchtime, I cooked some rice!

So – I cut up some (not much) of the leftover pot roast beef into slivers.  Finely chopped three cloves of garlic, and sliced a knob of fresh ginger into julienne strips.  Chopped three spring onions, one red pepper, about a third of a rather tired cucumber.  Beat two eggs in a mug with some sesame oil (about two teaspoonsful, I would say).  While I was doing all this, I steamed a few broccoli florets.

Heated some groundnut oil in the big wok, and put in the garlic, ginger, pepper, spring onions and cucumber.  Stirred round till cooked, added juice of half a lemon, broccoli, cold beef.  Stirred around till they were warmed through.

Poured in egg, and stirred it round with a chopstick – it felt more authentic, somehow. As it started to set, I added the rice, then stirred it all together furiously with a dollop of soy sauce.  It was lovely – we shall have it again!