Brown Bag Lunch Project: Fried Rice to the Rescue

While I haven’t been good about posting my lunches (and posting in general for that matter), I’ve been pretty good about bring them to work, although I’ve needed to resort to various variations of fried rice for the last three weeks to help me get through the days.



The trick to fried rice is to use day old rice instead of a freshly made pot, similarly to how one makes croutons from stale bread, but other than that you can pretty much mix and match whatever else to toss in the stir-fry. I like to use the trifecta of carrots, green onions, and scrambled eggs as my base and then add some sort of meat to complete the dish—leftover braised oxtailsm, for example. But truly sky's the limit and you can make almost any combination of things work. Once in a pinch I used shredded Brussels Sprouts, and I also like to throw in a fistful of chopped cilantro if I have a bunch on hand.

And while I'm not a fan of pre-made seasoning packets, I make an exception for fried rice and use one that gives things an Indonesian style taste. Nasi Goreng is Indonesian and Malaysian for fried rice and in essence the same dish in both countries.