Fried rice, with vegetables- Thai style

As a kid I grew up around Malaysians. Back then – I think I was 5- 6 years old- I was fascinated by everything that the Malaysians had and we didn’t have at home. The smell and taste of their food made quite an impression on me. Even now, if I close my eyes and think of the olden times, I can, right away, recall the smell of food in their homes and the taste of their rice.

In our cuisine, the rice was regularly with a round grain, and everybody cooked it as a pilaff/ risotto- moist, with a deep flavor of dill or parsley. In their cuisine, the rice had a long grain and was cooked dry, you could feel each grain…so far away from our pilaff.

I think it was the end of to 80’s, beginning of the 90s when my Mom received as a gift from a Malaysian lady a “wonder  pot” (that’s how we called it). An electrical pot in which you put the rice and water and in 12-13 minutes it cooked the rice just as the Malaysian one. We used to serve it with soy sauce, chili sauce and other sauces that I can’t recall now. We used to have it next to curry fried chicken. Delicious! Nowadays, after so many years, I always have around soy sauce and curry.

Years later, when I left home and moved out on my own, by chance I found an online store which sold the “wonder pot”. Didn’t think twice and bought it. I don’t use it very often, but every time I do I congratulate myself for buying it.

I think back then it’s when I acquired a taste for Asian food.

Today I was in a mood for rice and since my man likes vegetables, I was going to made rice with vegetables. But he hates pilaff- it makes him think of hospital food. So I had to satisfy both my and his taste- fried rice with vegetables- Thai style (because I have used Thai condiments) .

It’s well known that for fried rice you have to use already cooked rice, even 1-2 days old, ‘cause it is dryer. Otherwise if you were to cook it in this process, you’d have to add water or soup to the dish and no matter how long the grain is, it would still turn to pilaff.

So I took out the “wonder pot” and some jasmine flavored rice which I had bought at a Chinese market. Of course that any long grained rice would work just as well. 

2 measures of rice and 2 ½ measures of water, pot plugged in and 12 minutes later the rice was cooked. 

I put it aside to cool and dry a bit and in the meantime I prepared the veggies.

½ an onion, finely chopped

3-4 garlic cloves

3 big mushrooms, roughly chopped

Bell pepper (mixed colors) (here I only had some frozen bell pepper- every summer/autumn my Mom buys organic bell pepper, finely chops it, puts it in plastic bags and freezes it. During winter she takes the bag out of the freezer, cuts out as much pepper as she needs and uses it in her dishes)- I used about two handfuls.   

½ a can of peas (about a handful)

I put some olive oil in a pan and flavored it with the garlic (finely chopped), a teaspoon of ginger paste and half a teaspoon of red curry paste. 

I then added the onions to be caramelized in the flavored oil. Next was the frozen bell pepper (of course fresh bell pepper would go just fine, but now, during winter, instead of buying the good looking but no taste one in the supermarket, I’d much rather use Mom’s) and the mushrooms.

Once the veggies were nicely done, I added the rice and then the peas. Salt and pepper. 

I let the flavors to mix well together, stirring  in the meantime..and then I tasted it…Hmmm…it needs something more… 

This sauce is hot and sweet…it’s similar to the one you get with your spring rolls. I added about a tablespoon and stirred everything together to have the sauce well blended in.

Such yumminess! It can be served just like that, on its own or it would go well with some Shanghai chicken.