Vegetable and Shrimp Fried Rice

     The inspiration for this recipe comes from Mark Bittman's Food Matters, but the actual ingredients are all mine.  We had brown rice with last night's dinner and I had Scott made extra so that we would have a good amount of rice for fried rice.  I used both his Vegetable and Shrimp fried rice recipe and his Spicy Fried Rice with Bean Sprouts, Chicken, and Peanuts.  I love recipes that are flexible with what you put in them.  I just used ingredients that I had around the house: a can of shrimp, farmer's market vegetables, asian sauces, leftover rice, etc. Let's see if I can remember what I put in the recipe:

Vegetable and Shrimp Fried Rice

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. vegetable oil
small onion, chopped
6-8 small carrots, cut into thin slices
3 small romanesco heads, chopped finely
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 can pink shrimp
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
leftover brown rice (2-4 cups)
1 egg
1/4 cup cooking wine
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
1 tbsp. sesame oil
pepper
ground ginger to taste
fiery pepper grinder to taste
garlic salt to taste

Procedure:

1) Put 1 tbsp. of the oil in a large skillet over high heat.  When it's hot, add the vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, until the soften and begin to brown, 5 to 10 minutes.  Lower the heat if the mixture threatens to scorch.  Transfer the vegetables to a bowl with a slotted spoon.  Add the chopped cilantro the the veggies.
2) Add another tablespoon oil to the pan, followed by the shrimp.  Cook and stir.  Add them to the bowl with the vegetables.  Put the remaining 1 tbsp oil in the skillet, followed by the garlic.  About 15 seconds later, begin to add the rice, a bit at a time, breaking up any clumps with your fingers and stirring it into the oil.  When all the rice is added, make a well in its center and break the egg into it; scramble it a bit, then incorporate it into the rice.
3) When all the rice is added, return the shrimp and vegetables to the pan and stir to combine.  Add the rice wine and cook, stirring, for about a minute.  Add the soy sauce, hoisin sauce and sesame oil, then taste and season with salt, pepper and other spices to taste.  Serve.

     It came out delicious!  I had tried making fried rice previously and it just came out so-so.  I think the extra flavorings of the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, etc. really made a difference.  I should also note that I used way more than 3 tbsp. of vegetable oil!  The rice alone just seemed to suck up the oil!  It was also interesting to note just how much hotter vegetable oil cooks than olive oil.  I've got cooking with olive oil down to a tee, but I still need to learn how to cook with vegetable oil!  Fortunately, I only very very lightly burned myself.  The shrimp disappeared in the recipe, but Scott swore he could still taste it in there.  I think it would be very good with chicken or tempeh or tofu.  I'm definitely going to make this again!  Delicious!

Vegetable and Shrimp Fried Rice