New York Times Fried Rice

I spotted this recipe yesterday on my daily wanderings through the internet's foodie pages ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/dining/27mini.html?ref=dining ) and thought it sounded like just the thing for a working-from-home lunch. I've just finished scoffing the my attempt and it really was pretty damn delicious!

What you do is this: Fry about 1 tbsp freshly chopped ginger and a couple of cloves of chopped garlic in some oil until they get all crispy (do this over a medium heat so they brown slowly rather than burning to a singe instantly). Remove and drain on a paper towel while you gently cook about half a chopped leek in the (now flavoured) oil. Once the leek is soft, add about 1 1/2 cups of cold, cooked rice (I used basmati because I had that in the fridge. I always, deliberately, cook too much rice) and stir-fry until piping hot (about 4 mins? You need it HOT. Rice is considered to be one of the major perpetrators of food poisoning, so cook it good folks!) Now, at this stage I suspect I should have added some salt to the rice and leeks. I didn't, and I do think it needed it. Up to you whether you want to do this...

Remove the rice and leeks to a warmed plate/bowl, add a splash of oil to the pan and fry an egg so that it stays slightly soft in the middle (not a huge fan of uber runny eggs, so mine was probably slightly more over-cooked than the original recipe called for, but you might as well eat what you like, right?). Serve the egg a-top the lovely pile of leeks and rice, sprinkle with your reserved crispy bits of garlic and ginger. Then drizzle a couple of tsp of soy around the edge, and 1 tsp sesame oil to finish. Yum yum yum. So simple, but also actually a really well-balanced lunch (carb, protein, a nod to vege...).

I like that this is so simple. I make fried rice a lot, but usually turn the egg into an omelette which I then chop and stir through at the end, and I add a lot more vege. Here the rice is the star and it really is worthy of centre-stage (though it would be nothing without its crispy back-up singers!). Oops, enough waxing lyrical about the wonders of rice...it really wouldn't do to start poetically waffling in a Nigella-like fashion! But do give this a shot, and let me know what you think!