Beef Fried Rice

Can't believe that a whole month has elapsed since my last post! Where has all the time gone?? Well, fortunately, it wasn't all bad, as I have been mainly pre-occupied with some new toys but mainly, it was Euro 2008! Well, one match left to go tomorrow, and if history is anything to go by, Germany will win it, despite Spain being the better and more entertaining team. Well, w'll see what happens tomorrow!

I have taken so many pictures since my last post, so what do I do, but blog about the humble fride rice! Well, this is actually not as humble and simple as it seems. Normally, we would use cooked leftover ingredients in a fried rice, but to use FRESH beef require the technique to be slightly modified. The reason is because beef is a very delicate meat to cook, especially if you want it to be tender and juicy afterwards, without overcoooking, or having to resort to using tenderised beef that has been marinated in chemicals.

My main ingredients are beef and cooked prawns (mainly to give it a colour balance) along with scallions to garnish at the end. The beef is marinated with garlic, soy and oyster sauce and sesame oil.




The beef is then rapidly fried in a VERY hot wok, till half cooked and set aside.




Then clean wok, reheat till high and half fry a beaten egg.




Then add cold cooked rice on top. Toss and add a sprinkling of stock / water and salt until rice is all separated and fluffy




Now comes the delicate part. Push rice to the side, add the beef with "SOME" of the juices. Not too much that it soaks the rice. Only enough so that it can all be worked into the rice without making it soggy. Then, mix and fry well for no more than another one minute. Any longer and the beef will become tough. If you rice is still soggy after that, then you have added too much juice. Either cook it longer and accept the tougher beef or remove from heat and accept the soggy rice. Garnish with cooked prawns and scallions before removing from heat.




And here is the final result! Enjoy!