Thai Fried Rice Recipe

Josh here, and today’s dish for our Thursday featured recipe is Thai fried rice. This fried rice differs from “traditional” fried rice with the additions of fish sauce, sugar, cilantro, and basil (Thai basil or sweet basil, or a combination of both).

Before we begin I want to stress one point. Do not use rice which has just been cooked, unless your desired goal is Thai fried Gruel. The rice needs to chill for at least six hours, preferably overnight. This is even more important if you’re using brown rice. I recommend Jasmine white rice.

Thai Fried Rice

2 cups cooked, COLD rice, refrigerated for at least six hours
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs fish sauce
1/2 cup yellow onion, minced
1/2 cup carrot, finely minced
2 green onion stalks, chopped in 1/2 inch lengths
1 cup mung bean sprouts
1-2 eggs, cracked and beaten almost to a froth
1 cup fresh basil leaves, torn roughly
1/2 cup cilantro leaves, whole
1 Tbs raw, natural sugar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Thai hot pepper, crushed to pieces (or 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes)
2 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs butter
Salt and pepper, to taste
Tomato slices, optional
Cilantro sprigs, optional
Lime wedge, optional
Cucumber slices, optional

Heat your wok, cast iron pan, or large frying pan on medium heat and add oil. When oil is hot–test by dropping in a droplet of water–add both garlic and hot pepper. Stir rigorously for 1-3 seconds; you want to see the garlic and pepper rapidly sizzle. The key here is not to even slightly brown the garlic as this makes it bitter. After no more than five seconds, add onion and carrots. This will slow the cooking and stop the garlic from burning. Continue to stir.

Add sugar. It will dissolve and mix into the ingredients almost instantly.

Continue stirring until unions shrink and become translucent. Push everything to one side and add butter, letting melt. Add beaten egg(s) and scramble until fully cooked. Incorporate egg into garlic, hot pepper, carrots, and onions.

Add cold rice. Then soy sauce and fish sauce. Stir until rice takes on the “fried” brown look. Add a little extra soy sauce if the rice is not brown enough.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Stir constantly for 2 minutes, ensuring no rice or other ingredients stick to the bottom. Add chopped mung bean sprouts and green onion and cook for 3 more minutes.

Kill heat but leave wok on burner. Add remaining ingredients, the basil and cilantro. Stir well until both are fully integrated into the rice.

Remove from heat and serve, garnishing with optional tomato slices, cucumber, sprigs of cilantro, and a quarter of a lime.

• Note: a variation I love is using bacon and bacon grease as the oil. The crumbled bacon adds a crunchy element to the rice. Simply fry up bacon beforehand and save 2 Tbs of the grease, moving bacon aside and adding at the end.

Finally, I’d like to share with you perhaps my favorite design of Leah’s. The design is called Pebbles in a Stream. It’s not the easiest design, but it resembles its namesake almost perfectly as you can see below.

Quilting Design #25 – Pebbles in a Stream

I don’t know what recipe I’ll share next week, but I promise it will be fun. And please feel free to share some of your favorite recipes. Leah and I love trying new things!

See you next Thursday,

Josh