Hands up if you love fried rice? Hands up if you’d make it more often except you never seem to have leftover cooked rice?? In case you hadn’t guessed, I have my hand raised high. That’s me all the way. Plus I love my quick fix, one pot meals – speedy to make, less washing up. And that’s how this creation came about. It’s a one pot version of fried rice, made from scratch without using leftover cooked rice. Truth be told, the texture is not exactly like fried rice. Have you noticed that the the rice grains in fried rice are loose and don’t stick together, which is why it’s hard to pile a lot onto a spoon? This rice is sticker, and the reason is because it isn’t made using leftover cooked rice. There are one-pot Chinese rice dishes that are made using this method of cooking rice, meat and vegetables all in one pot. But they require a fancy clay pot (which I don’t have) and also cured Chinese meats like Chinese Sausage and pork belly which need to be hunted down in Asian grocery stores. So my version of a Chinese one pot rice dish is made using everyday ingredients that you can get from any supermarket. It has all the flavours of a fried rice so you can get your fix without having to worry about remembering to make rice the night before. Surely no one is that organised?? The only time I ever have fried rice is if I happen to have leftover rice. I don’t think I’ve ever planned ahead to make fried rice!
A nifty tip to make this One Pot Chinese Chicken “Fried Rice” a complete meal by bumping up the greens is to place halved bok choys or other leafy chinese greens on top of the rice while it’s resting. The residual heat steams the greens perfectly. Just make sure not to add really solid thick stems (like stems of Chinese broccoli, but bok choy is fine) as they probably won’t cook through. I normally do this when I make it using a pot rather than a fry pan. In this case I used a fry pan so there wasn’t enough room between the top of the rice and the lid to add the bok choy. Hope you enjoy it! Love to hear if you try it!
