Egg Fried Rice with Sausage

Don't feel bad if you are going to use the leftover rice and trying to serve a decent meal for your family.  Check your refrigerator and pantry, you might still find many ingredients that you can use to make fried rice that's good enough as a main dish.  It can be not only color-appealing but also nutrition-balanced.  Besides, the secret to good fried rice is starting with cold cooked grains.  If you don't have leftover rice, then cooked rice needs to be planned in advance.

I like to incorporate ingredients in my fried rice with as many colors of vegetable as possible (red, yellow, black, white or green).  And if it's for main dish, I would include one kind of meat (sausage, pork, chicken, ham) or shrimps.

Ingredients (2 servings):

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup soaked and diced dried mushrooms (or fresh mushrooms) (Tip 1)

3/4 cup diced carrots
1/3 cup diced onion

1/2 cup frozen peas (or chopped green onions)

1 cup diced Taiwanese sausages (can substitute with pork, chicken, ham or hot dog) (Tip 2)

4 cups cooked rice (long grain or brown rice)

cooking oil
salt to taste

Directions:
1. Bring 1-1/2 tablespoons oil to hot, add eggs and stir-fry to make scrambled eggs.  Break them up into smaller pieces with spatula and remove.
2. Bring another 3 tablespoons oil to medium high, stir-fry dried mushrooms until they are lightly browned and fragrant, season with dash of salt, push them to side of wok.
3. Stir-fry carrots, add dash of salt, cook until soft, also push them to side of wok.
4. Add sausages and stir-fry until cooked, push them to side of wok.
5. Stir-fry onions until they are transparent, then mix all the ingredients in wok, add green peas and dash of salt, stir-fry until all ingredients are cooked and soft (Tip 3).
6. Lower the temperature to low heat, add cooked rice,  Stir-fry rice with other ingredients in wok, break up big chunks of cold rice with spatula but don't press them too hard.  Add scrambled eggs pieces.  Season with more salt (just enough for the rice), mix well and serve.


Tip 1: The sequence of adding vegetables is depends on the cooking time needed for each different kind of vegetable.  The one that's hard to cook will need to go in first.  If fresh mushrooms are used, they go in after the onions.


Tip 2: If raw meat or shrimps are used, marinate (soy sauce for meat/salt and cooking wine for shrimps) and stir-fry them first, remove before cooking other vegetables.


Tip 3: Make sure there's still some extra oil in vegetables before adding rice.