Vegetarian Fried Rice

I’ve never really been a massive fan of Chinese food, I would always choose Japanese or Thai if I had the option however my friend Adelle recently lent me a book called Why the Chinese don’t count calories, and it totally changed my opinion on Chinese food (and on eating in general!). I realised that the Chinese food I’d known, the typical take away style beef with black bean sauce kind of meal, does not in any way do Chinese food justice. I read this book when I was interstate on holidays, and it was so well written with beautiful recipes and food stories I was itching to get back home so I could cook!

So, inspired by what I’d read I of course then was inspired to get a Chinese cookbook and I liked the look of Kylie Kwong’s Simple Chinese Cooking – it has a lot of really basic and traditional recipes that you can use day to day.

For week 19 of the Cookbook Challenge the theme is rice, so perfect timing for my new cookboook! I decided to do a Vegetarian Fried Rice. Fried rice is pretty simple but it does take a bit of skill, or a good recipe, to do a good one.

Ingredients

1/3 cup vegetable oil

4 free range eggs, lightly beaten

1 small carrot, peeled

1 small red onion, finely sliced

1 tablespoon finely diced ginger

100g fresh shitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps finely sliced

2 teaspoons sea salt

4 cups steamed rice

1 1/3 cups finely shredded Chinese cabbage leaves

1 cup fresh bean sprouts

2 tablespoons finely chopped corriander roots and stems

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

2/3 cup finely sliced spring onions

Heat half the oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Pour beaten eggs into wok and leave to cook on the base of the wok for 10 seconds before folding egg mixture over itself with a spatula and lightly scrambling for about 1 minute or until amost cooked through. Carefully remove omlette from wok with a spatula and drain on kitchen paper. Set aside.

Using a vegetable peeler, finely slice carrot lengthways into ribbons and then into a fine julienne.

Heat remaining oil in hot wok and stir fry onion, ginger, mushrooms and salt for 1 minute. Add carrot, rice, cabbage, bean sprouts, coriander, soy sauce and reserved omlette and stir fry for about 1 1/2 minutes. Use a spatula to break up the egg into smaller pieces while cooking. Lastly, toss in spring onions and stir fry for 30 seconds or until well combined and rice is heated through.

Transfer rice to a bowl and serve immediately. Yum!