Shrimps, ham and asparagus fried rice

June 21, 2007 
Filed under School lunchbox

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I love making fried rice for the kids’ packed school lunch. Fried rice cooks fast and it has everything — meat or seafood, vegetables and rice. Instead of two food containers, they only need to bring one each. More importantly, fried rice is so easy to eat — nothing to cut into smaller pieces, no dipping sauces and either a spoon or a fork will do.

shrimp, ham and asparagus fried rice

What vegetables are good for cooking fried rice? The most common combination is carrots and sweet peas. Leafy vegetables are rarely added since they expel too much water during cooking and water doesn’t do any good to the overall texture of fried rice. Personally, I like using vegetables that retain their crispiness well. Like asparagus. Strips of scrambled eggs are optional but the bright yellow color just look wonderful, so, why not?

The following recipe serves four. You might want to read some tips on stir frying before making this fried rice dish.

Ingredients :

4-5 c. of cold cooked rice, mashed to separate the grains
300 grams (shelled weight) of medium-sized shrimps
100 to 200 grams of baby asparagus, cut into 3 portions
1 medium-sized carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
2 sliced of ham, diced
1 tbsp. of finely chopped garlic
2-3 shallots, peeled and chopped coarsely
2-3 tbsps. of light soy sauce
salt and pepper
5-6 tbsps. of vegetable cooking oil

Cooking procedure :

Heat the cooking oil in a wok or frying pan. Add the beaten eggs and cook until set. Lift with a turner or a spatula and transfer to a cutting board. Roll the cooked eggs then cut into thin strips.

Reheat the remaining cooking oil. When it starts to smoke, add the shrimps and cook just until they change color. Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl or plate. Keep warm.

In the remaining oil, add the garlic and shallots. Cook until fragrant. Add the chopped carrot and cut asparagus. Stir fry for about a minute. Add the ham. Cook for another 30 seconds. Add the rice. Pour in the soy sauce. Season with some salt and lots of freshly ground pepper. Stir to blend. Cook, stirring often, until the rice is heated through. Add the cooked shrimps and egg strips. Drizzle some sesame seed oil. Stir a few more times then turn off the heat.

Note that you can dispense with the salt if you add enough soy sauce to flavor the fried rice. Personally, I don’t like adding too much soy sauce because they fried rice turns too dark. That’s why I add salt in addition to soy sauce.

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Comments

6 Comments on "Shrimps, ham and asparagus fried rice"

  1. May on Fri, 22nd Jun 2007 10:09 am 

    Hi Ms Connie,

    I noticed that the eggs were scrambled first, cut into strips then added to the fried rice - which is not a bad idea. I am not sure if you have tried this, but our traditional fried rice (we could consider Chinese hehe) is that we add the eggs towards the end. We make a shallow hole in the middle of the fried rice, put the egg in that hole, and toss the fried rice - making sure that egg is distributed in the mixture. Or else, you’ll have a big lumps of cooked egg. The result is similar to Chinese soups (crab and corn, etc) you’ll see tiny confettis of eggs. Ayun po, pero pag malamig pa po yung fried rice and we add the egg, magiging basa po and it will not dry talaga (according to my experience) Kaya, need tlagang mainit na mainit yung mixture or nagluluto sa high heat. Ayun lang po. Sorry mahaba po:)

    Thanks,
    May

  2. Connie on Fri, 22nd Jun 2007 5:46 pm 

    If the raw eggs are poured into the rice, they will bind the grains. Eh pag fried rice, the grains are meant to stay separate unlike bagong saing, especially kung malabsa yung saing. As you have observed, when reheated, basa na yung kanin, di ba?

  3. Rose on Fri, 22nd Jun 2007 9:45 pm 

    The purpose of making the hole in the middle of the rice is so the egg doesn’t mix with the rice while it cooks and gets scrambled, thus it won’t bind the rice grains (kind of hard to explain this with just text!). That’s how I usually see it done, anyway. I’ve never mastered that trick, but that’s probably because I can’t get my wok hot enough without setting off the smoke alarm :/

  4. Connie on Fri, 22nd Jun 2007 10:49 pm 

    Interesting technique. I might try it one of these days.

  5. OziChris on Sat, 23rd Jun 2007 7:19 am 

    G’day Connie, we in Australia usually cook the eggs “May” style for fried rice. The Ozi version of Chinese fried rice usually has peas whether it’s cooked at home of by a restaurant. Peas in fried rice might be unique to Australia?

    Love your blogs, good luck with your new teaching job.

    Chris

  6. Connie on Sat, 23rd Jun 2007 10:17 am 

    OziChris, peas in fried rice is universal :). Peas and carrots are the most common fried rice veggies here.




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