Eat It: Bacon Fried Rice

Last night, I had planned to go to the grocery store, but my day ran late, we had friends coming by and only about a half hour to make dinner, so I decided to cook with whatever was in my fridge. And boy, am I glad I did.

Please excuse my iPhone pic and extra veggies*

I'd completely forgotten how much I like fried rice. It's the easiest, most versatile dinner imaginable, and it's perfect for using up everything in your fridge. Chop up your last bits of red or green pepper, onion, carrot, zucchini, herbs, tomato, avocado and toss them in. Add a can of drained and rinsed chick peas or black beans. Throw in some frozen peas or corn. Leave out the egg and make it vegan. Add in last night's leftover taco meat, shredded chicken, strips of steak, cubed hamburgers, tofu, whatever! Raid your fridge and cupboards mercilessly and your taste buds will thank you for it.

I had some leftover bacon from brunch on Sunday, so I thought I'd use that up. And, lucky for me, bacon makes everything it touches the most amazing incarnation of its possible self. Onions and eggs cooked in bacon fat? Sign me up.

It makes for great microwaveable leftovers the next day too, and is just enough bacon to be office appropriate. You could even use the leftovers in burritos! Aw man, I'm totally doing that.

I have it here as I made it last night, but feel free to add/subtract/replace as you see fit. If you're not using bacon, you'll have to add a little oil whenever you're cooking something new in the pan – my go-to is olive oil, but whatever you have on hand (even butter!) would be fine.

Bacon Fried Rice

Serves 4 dinner sized portions, or 6 side portions

Ingredients:
1 cup of uncooked rice (I used basmati since that's what I had, but you can use any kind of rice you like)
2 cups cold water
1 tbsp butter
4 slices of uncooked bacon
1 medium onion
Half a red pepper
A few cloves of garlic
2 eggs
1 cup of baby carrots (this would probably equal about 2 large carrots)
1 tbsp ground ginger or grated fresh ginger
Soya sauce or teriyaki sauce (I used teriyaki, but I think soya would probably be even better)
Salt and pepper to taste
A handful of cilantro

1. Get your rice started. For one cup of rice, I add double that in water (2 cups of cold water) and a tablespoon of butter. Put it all in your pot, set it on high, put on the lid and set your timer to 5 minutes. When it's boiling (should be at about 5 minutes), turn it down to medium high and set your timer to 10 minutes. Leave the lid on.

2. Cut your raw bacon into small pieces, break out your biggest pan and get that bacon frying. I used my large cast iron pan, because it makes everything taste better.

3. Take this cooking time to prep. Dice your onion and red pepper, mince your garlic, start grating your carrots, wash and chop up the cilantro. Stir the bacon ocassionally so it doesn't burn.

4. When your bacon's done to your liking (I like it less crispy), remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon and place on a plate with paper towel laid on top. Leave the grease in the pan and keep the heat on about medium.

5. Put your onions in the hot pan of bacon grease. They'll make this really enticing sizzling sound and start smelling amazing. Add your garlic and peppers in about a minute – they cook much more quickly than the onions and can burn easily, so waiting will let the onions absorb some of the extra heat first. Stir occasionally.

6. Your rice timer will probably go off about now. Remove the pot from the heat, lift off the lid and fluff with a fork. Set aside.

7. Your onions will start to go clear and melty. Remove the onion mixture from the pan with the slotted spoon and place them on another paper towel lined plate to absorb some extra oil. Don't clean that pan yet!

8. Crack your eggs into the bacon greased pan and once they start to cook, scramble them. I use a rubber scraper to make sure I get all the delicious cooked bits off the bottom. (It's okay if there's some oniony bits in this too, it's all going to the same place.) Scramble them so hard they get really grainy – you don't want big fluffy mass, you want to get a tiny bit of egg in every bite.

9. Your eggs are cooked? Good. Add the onion mixture back in, and add in the shredded carrot. Give it a good stir so it gets nice and mixed. Wait a minute or so, so the carrot gets a little softer.

10. Now add in your rice and the soya/teriyaki sauce. I probably added 4-5 tbsps of sauce – you want your rice looking like it has a good tan, so as much as it takes for that to happen. Add in the ground ginger too, and a little salt and a lot of pepper. Use a wide spoon to mix so you can fold your mixture in, because your pan will be pretty full at this point, so stirring isn't really an option. My technique is to scoop from the sides and place in the middle – do this enough and it will mix without losing too much over the pan's edges.

11. Add the cilantro once everything else is mixed. I like my cilantro to stay pretty bright, so that's why I only add it in during the last minute or so of cooking. Give it another good mixing and you're through. Pair with a light summery beer and good company.

Happy eating, friends!

*You might be thinking, why Amanda! That rice has green onions and sprouts in it! You didn't add those in! The truth is, I love fried rice so much I had it both Tuesday AND Wednesday night. The first batch was made at a friend's and was much healthier – no meat, eggs, or butter, and included green onions, carrots, red pepper and pea sprouts. There were very few leftovers though, so I just added some of my own artery-clogging creation to the top and stirred it all together when I heated it.