I love simple food. Even better I love tasty, simple food that’s cheap. But there are times when I’ve scratched my head and wondered what to do with that last lonely pork chop forlornly shivering in the freezer or what to do with that last serving of roast that’s slowly aging in a plastic container in the back of the 3rd shelf in the fridge.
That’s why to me fried rice is the ultimate leftover. You take a little of this and a little of that, some leftover meat and rice and you’ve got dinner.
There are a lot of places (think Asia) where fried rice is a staple. There’s always leftover rice and bits of vegetables and meat. Enough when combined to feed a family. When my kids were growing up I managed to feed 4 with one pork chop or a couple of chicken thighs or one chicken breast. The kids really loved it when I’d do ground beef with chopped up tomato and salsa for “taco fried rice”. You’re only limited by your imagination and what you have on hand.
But remember, the first thing you have to have is left over rice. Sorry, but you can’t cook up a pan of rice and then just dump it into the wok to complete the dish. It needs to sit for a while—preferably at least overnight or make it early in the day and then refrigerate it. It has to do with letting the starches in the rice “relax” so it separates and fries rather than turning to “mush” as freshly made rice will do.
If you don’t have a rice cooker, you can do what I do and just make it in a 2 quart lidded sauce pan. Here’s the quick and simple recipe:
Steamed Rice = 2 cups long grained rice + water
Put the rice in the pan and then rinse it 4 or 5 times with cold water. Then cover the rinsed rice with water—dip your finger into the water. The water should come up to your first knuckle when the tip of your finger just barely touches the rice. 
Put the pan of rice on the stove, burner turned to medium high. Let it come to a boil and let almost all of the water boil off—I wait until there’s just bubbles popping out of the “craters” in the rice. Turn the burner all the way down as low as it will go. Cover the pot and let it sit for 20 minutes on that burner.
It’s that easy. This is the recipe from Madame Wong’s Long-Life Chinese Cookbook” that I’ve been using for 30 plus years—the book came with my first wok.
So, now that we have our rice, let’s turn it into fried rice. Here’s my basic recipe that I’ve used for decades. This dish used left over pork roast but you can use chicken, beef, shrimp or whatever you’ve got on hand.
Recipe: Cheap Bastid’s Fried Rice
Summary: The Ultimate Leftovers! Take some leftover rice and meat, combine with veggies and you’ve got a tasty, and cheap, meal or side dish.
Ingredients
- 4 cups left-over steamed rice
- ½ lb meat diced to about ¼ inch
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup each diced onion, bell pepper, zucchini, tomato—whatever vegetables you have
- Salt, pepper and garlic
- Vegetable oil (I use canola)
Instructions
- Get out your wok. (If you don’t have a wok get out your biggest sauté pan).
- Get out your cutting board, knife and a couple of small bowls.
- Always do all your cutting and chopping first when you’re using a wok!
- Dice up all your ingredients—the meat, the vegetables, etc. Put the meat in a bowl and put the veggies in their own bowl.
- Put the eggs in a small bowl and whisk them with a small whisk or a fork.
- Take out the pot of rice that you made. Use a wooden spatula or even your hands to break up the rice in it so that it’s not so clumpy and will be easier to work with when you add it to the wok.
- Put the wok on the big burner of your stove and turn it to high. Add a couple of tablespoons of oil and swirl it around.
- When the wok is hot, add all the vegetables and use a wooden spoon and spatula to stir fry them for 2 or 3 minutes. Then add the meat. Now is the time to add salt and pepper.
- Let all the meat get good and hot and then add the eggs. You can either pour them into a “well” in the bottom of the wok or pour them over the vegetable/meat mix.
- Keep stirring the eggs so they incorporate into the rest of the food and don’t stick.
- Now, add the rice a “handful”/scoopful at a time and start mixing, mixing, mixing. Turn the heat down to medium.
- Add more salt, pepper and garlic and any other spices you would like—I like adding cumin (we really like cumin) along with something smokey like Ancho or chili powder.
- Now is the time if you want to add any liquid such as a bit of soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce (I like adding a bit of Ken’s Asian Sesame salad dressing).
- Make sure everything is stirred together, turn off the burner and transfer the wok to a resting area or just leave it on the stove and plate from there.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 5 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
Culinary tradition: Chinese
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
This is easy and fast. From the time you turn on the burner to the time you’re done cooking is going to be about 10 minutes. Your prep time will actually be a bit longer. And this is really tasty. It makes a meal—especially if you add a garden salad to it. And, as the title says, fried rice is the ultimate leftovers.
The Cheap Bastid Test: The rice costs about $.80 a pound and I suppose that 2 cups is about $.35 worth; and the meat was “left over” but originally cost $2.50 a pound so let’s say $1.25 worth. Two eggs are $.30 and the veggies add another $.75. Total cost then is $2.65 or $.66 a serving. That’s the kind of cooking I want—cheap and good at the same time.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
