likealark | Fried rice a la Tristris

hey dears,

i heard y'all were looking for my fried rice recipe so here's my best attempt at codifying a process that kind of evolved over years.

Gear:
a largeish teflon frying pan
a large teflon wok
a big wood or plastic spoon to stir with

This is a pretty forgiving recipe that can accommodate a lot of ingredients or their absence comfortably, but here's a loose list of ingredients:

cooked rice (white or brown works - i prefer brown)
cooking oil (i use canola)
a largish onion
choice of veggies - carrots, broccoli, bell peppers all work fairly well
2lbs of tofu
soy sauce
spices: cumin, smoked paprika, five spice, fresh ground black pepper, garlic in some form - i use powder bc i'm trashy - and whatever else you want
a cup or glass of water

Start your rice cooking.

Drain your tofu and cut it into strips a quarter inch wide or so. Set your wok on a burner running medium hot. Pour a fair bit of cooking oil into the wok, add spices to taste, stir or slosh the oil to distribute the spices. Add a little soy sauce. When the soy sauce is bubbling in the oil, throw the tofu in. Stir until the tofu is covered evenly in the spicy oil, then stir infrequently while you do other stuff; it'll take awhile for the moisture to cook out of the tofu.

i like to caramelize or at least cook the shit out of the onions. Dice the onion and add it to the oiled frying pan on high heat - seriously, i have the burner at max for this. Immediately add water, enough to cover the onions. Basically you're going to be boiling the onion in the pan to help break down the cellulose into sugar without burning it.

Keep an eye on the liquid levels of both the onions and the tofu while you chop up your veggies of choice. i'm weird and like to add some finely sliced broccoli stalk sometimes.

If the onions start to dry out, add more water, repeating until they're well softened and translucent. At that point, turn down the burner on the tofu so you can pay close attention to the onions for five minutes or so, stirring _constantly_ while you fry them on high heat until they're a nice deep amber. Don't stress if you burn them to the pan a little, just add a few drops of water to deglaze and keep stirring. When the onions are done, take the pan off the burner and turn the wok burner back up to medium high again.

If the tofu starts to dry out (you'll probably be done with the onions by this point) then start stirring more frequently, but a little gently to avoid breaking it up too much. The tofu pieces should start slowly turning golden brown and acquiring a little crisp as they fry up. When the tofu is as fried as you want, dump it out of the wok into a bowl (or on top of the cooked onions in the pan, if there's room).

Stir fry your veggies in the now empty wok on medium. If you do the sliced broccoli stalk, consider frying it in olive oil and/or a little soy sauce for flavor. When your veggies are done, tip them out into whatever you put the tofu into. Heaping them up in the frying pan is fine by me.

Hopefully your rice is done or will soon be done. Again, oil the wok fairly generously and set the burner medium high. Add spices as before - try some of the cooked tofu to see whether any of the spice levels need to be adjusted - and stir the oil. Add cooked rice to the hot oil and stir, distributing the oil through the rice and breaking up any clumps of cooked rice as thoroughly as possible. Let the rice cook without stirring for two minutes or so to crisp up a little, stir until the crisp grains are distributed evenly, and turn off the burner. Add the tofu, onions and veggies, stir everything up again and serve.

Makes around 5 or 6 servings.