My Dad made us classic egg-fried rice with bacon and peas when we were kids. I mean, I loved it from the Chinese Takeaway but the at-home version seemed pretty special to me. Making something tasty, delicious and exotic at home from scratch? I thought that was absolutely mint.
Fast forward 20 years and I’m taking a 6 month sabbatical around South-East Asia where most days I ate this stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner and my obsession grew from there really. This is my go-to meal, any time of the day. The ingredients and method below are for a version that serves 2 people a main-course portion. The best thing about this recipe is that you can throw in pretty much any veg you have lying around in the fridge. Except for tomatoes, please don’t ever add those!
Make sure you check out my serving suggestions at the end of the post to see how you can turn it into an Indonesian breakfast, a simple side dish or bulk it out even further with crispy tofu.
Ingredients
Serves 2 as a main
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 small white onion/echalion shallot, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 fresh red chillies, finely sliced – remember to de-seed
- 250g cooked basmati rice – white rice works best!
- Lots of veggies – whatever you have in the fridge that needs using – chopped broccoli/mange tout/green beans/sugar snaps/diced peppers all work well as do frozen peas. Tomatoes do NOT work well 🙃
- 2 large organic eggs, lightly beaten
For the seasoning:
- 2-3 tbsp light soy sauce, to taste
- ½ tbsp dark soy sauce, to taste
- ½ tbsp fish sauce, to taste
- good pinch of sugar, to taste
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame seed oil
- Squeeze lime juice
Method
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large wok. Fry the onions with a pinch of salt until translucent and slightly golden (about 3-5 mins). Add the garlic, chillies and a dash of light soy sauce and stir fry for another 2 minutes. Add the veggies (fresh first, then frozen if using a combination) and continue stirring for 3-4 minutes until they begin to cook through and soften.
- Keep everything moving in the pan and start to build your seasoning; add 1 tbsp light soy, ½ tbsp dark soy, ½ tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil and a pinch of sugar to start with. Give it a good stir and stir fry over a high heat for 3 minutes.
- Add the cooked rice and stir fry to combine and heat through. Once everything is heated through, check your seasoning and adjust here before you add the eggs – I add a bit more dark soy, and a dash more fish sauce until it feels balanced.
- Once you’re happy with the flavour move everything over to one side of the wok, leaving a large, clear space to cook the eggs. Pour the beaten eggs into the pan and leave for a few moments. Don’t move it around too much at this point, it needs time to cook through. Once the eggs start to cook and solidify, move the mixture around just a little bit to ensure it’s cooked through evenly. Once the eggs are just cooked through and fluffy, combine them with the rice/veg mixture.
- Serve immediately and make sure to put light soy sauce, sesame oil and siracha on the table so you can adjust as needed!
Other serving suggestions
Crispy chilli tofu
This fried rice goes really well with added bits of crispy tofu. Simply drain half a block of tofu of excess water, chop into 1.5 cm cubes and marinate in dark soy sauce, fresh ginger, chilli, garlic and lime juice/zest. Fry off in a hot wok with a dash of oil for 5 minutes, then transfer to the top shelf of a hot oven for 10-15 mins to cook through and crisp up – turning half way through. Add to the rice just before serving.
Nasi goreng
To turn this into an Indonesian classic breakfast, simply add a crispy fried sunny-side egg and some sambal chilli sauce (I make Gaz Oakly’s Sambal from this recipe). You can also serve alongside some quick-pickled veg: slice up some cucumber and radish and dowse them in rice wine vinegar for 10 minutes or so then simply serve alongside your rice when plating up!
Classic Chinese takeaway style
If you want to serve your egg fried rice as more of a side than a main – try the classic combination of bacon and peas. For this, swap out the garlic and chilli for bacon, make peas your only veggie and strip your seasoning right back to just light soy sauce (not dark!) and you should be able to create that classic egg fried rice everyone knows and loves!
If you give this a go please tag me @sophiesscran on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook, I’d love to hear from you.
