Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Spam, The Sequel: Fried Rice Recipe


Of my videos demonstrating some of my easy recipes, the one that ranks among the most viewed is my spam musubi video. I’m pretty sure it’s because people like searching for the word Spam. (47,163 views and counting on YouTube.)

So I decided to cook with Spam again, this time making fried rice, which can be a really quick and easy dinner to make. Fried rice is great because you can pretty much create your rice dish with whatever ingredients you have in the refrigerator or your pantry. Of course, you’ll need to have some pre-cooked rice, preferably leftover rice that’s been in the refrigerator for a day or two.

Just to make this Spam rice even more crazy, I added crushed pineapples just to give it a Hawaiian twist. Check out my video to see how simple it is to make fried rice and use the recipe below so you can give it a try. Enjoy!

Spam Fried Rice with Pineapples

Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients
3/4 can of Spam, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
3-4 cups of cooked rice (long grain, leftover)
8 oz. frozen peas and carrots, defrosted
3 eggs, scrambled
1 small can of crushed pineapples (drained and squeezed of juice)
1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped
2-3 T soy sauce
2-3 T Xiao Hsing rice cooking wine (or sherry wine)
1 t ground white pepper
salt, if needed
Canola oil

In a non-stick wok or large skillet, warm some oil over high heat and add the eggs. Season with a pinch of salt and scramble as you cook and then remove and set aside.

In the same wok, add the Spam chunks to brown for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove from wok.

Heat some oil again and add the peas and carrots, then add the rice, making sure everything gets blended. Season your rice with white pepper, soy sauce and Xiao Hsing wine, making sure everything blends together. Then add the Spam and scrambled eggs, followed by the crushed pineapples and green onions. Since most of the items are cooked, you just want to stir-fry everything to blend well and then taste to see if you need to season it with more salt. If it tastes to your liking, plate it up and you’re ready to eat.

Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Pair with pot of hot oolong tea.

TIP: When making fried rice, it’s important to control the moisture level of the ingredients in your wok. That’s why you cook the ingredients in parts and stages to make sure it gets the chance to fully cooked and not get crowded in the wok. Be sure you squeeze out as much of the juice from the pineapples so you don’t add more liquid to the fried rice.

SPAM OR BUST?: OK, so I use Spam as the main protein but you can easily substitute it for ham or even Chinese sausage known as lap cheong.

8 comments:

JulieK said...

Thanks for the Spam Musubi reminder. I keep meaning to tell you that your method of using the can as a mold scares me. I can hook you up with a homemade (by my dad)wooden mold if you are interested...

Anonymous said...

yumm!

Mrs. l said...

Spam Fried Rice is a favorite of mine. One of the first posts I ever had on my blog. I JUST bought a big thing of lap cheong to make fried rice with on Thursday!

James said...

Yesss! Quintessential single guy culinary arts here. I love it! Can't wait for summer mangos so I can throw those into Spam fried rice as well.

Single Guy Ben said...

Julie, LOL, my sister saw my video too and gave me a Spam musubi mold for my birthday. I still think the can works just as well, and is more real world Spam musubi making. ;-)

Jenster said...

I got very hungry watching you cook that Spam fried rice! I love making fried rice and throwing in leftover meats and veggies. However, I've never added white pepper, cooking wine or crushed pineapples, so thanks for sharing that idea.

I add a little oyster sauce to mine, along with the soy sauce, to give it a slight sweetness. Do you ever do that?

Single Guy Ben said...

Jenster, I love oyster sauce but because it's so thick, I don't use it on my fried rice. I would think it'll reduce the fluffiness of fried rice by having to wait for the oyster sauce to thin out. The soy sauce and xiao hsing wine are thinner and can burn off faster I think than oyster sauce. (But I do put oyster sauce in almost everything else!)

Anonymous said...

that looks tasty. i like to make a spam and macaroni bake. it's delicious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXIlmpMdGC0