(aka cơm chiên)

This is my leftover dish, where I throw pretty much everything I have in the fridge together with some leftover rice. It recently benefitted from a great post by kitchen tigress on how to improve fried rice: namely, put in lots of unami flavour (nước mắm, shallots, dried shrimps, maggi sauce…). The post also covered lots of other interesting things to do to get the perfect fried rice, but I’m afraid my courage failed me there. I’m going to post the recipe that corresponds to the picture, but I honestly never make the same fried rice twice, as it so heavily depends on actual leftovers in my fridge. This is definitely a recipe that calls for experimentation and is pretty forgiving altogether.

I apologise for the fuzziness in the rice measurements–this is something I do by eye and with the rice cooker cup, and I’m well aware not everyone will have one of those around!

(if you need tips on how to cook the rice, see here)

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Com chien: fried rice
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Recipe type: Main
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 4
 

A quick and simple way to recycle leftover rice.
Ingredients
  • 1.5 cup uncooked rice (careful, it’s the cup that comes with rice cookers, so that’s 270mL of rice) + 1⅞ cup water (aka 340mL water), or the equivalent in cooked rice (basically, cooked rice for 3 people)
  • 2 tablespoons dried shrimps
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 140g corn kernels
  • 5-6 shallots
  • A few drops maggi sauce (optional)

Instructions
  1. Some time before starting the recipe, cook the rice (this is *really* best done a day ahead, which is why this is a great dish for leftover rice. Otherwise it gets a bit hard to actually fry the rice…)
  2. Beat the eggs and the fish sauce together. Mince the shallots as fine as you can.
  3. In a frying pan, put a little oil, and cook a proto-omelette (basically, you want the eggs firm, but in bits and pieces–sort of like scrambled eggs, but firmer). Put the cooked eggs aside.
  4. Put the shallots in the frying pan, and cook them until soft and fragrant. Then add the dried shrimps and the corn, and swirl a bit until they’re hot.
  5. Add more oil in the pan, and then the rice bit by bit, breaking it up as you go and making sure it’s well mixed with the garnish. Then add a few drops maggi sauce if using, give it a few more swirls, et voilà!
  6. Serve hot.

Notes
This is also great with little flecks of crab, or pretty much any combination you can think of (for once, I’d actually advise against garlic, because it doesn’t mesh so well with the eggs and fish sauce). If adding ingredients like chicken or pork, which have next to no umami, don’t forget to increase the amount of dried shrimps/shallots/maggi sauce! (while in Vietnam, we ate this with the local Tet sausages, which made a great addition)

 

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