Categories
Main Dish Side Dish

For dinner tonight, choose to go with the grain

Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what’s sitting in your refrigerator.

Over the years, I have to confess that I have tended to order off of the side dishes part of the menu for a lot of my meals.

Particularly at Chinese restaurants, I’ve been known to just buy an order of fried rice for lunch and skip over the entrees completely. It’s one of my favorite things.

According to an article by Rhonda Parkinson, the recipe for fried rice literally goes back centuries in China and likely came about sometime during the Sui Dynasty, which lasted from 589 to 618 A.D.

The “proper” way to make it is the subject of a lot of debate online if you want to jump into the fray. People differ on the seasonings, the vegetables, what meats are or are not added, and even at what point in the process an egg should be added.

So when I made fried rice to go along with dinner recently, I just chose a recipe that sounded good to try and went with it, fully recognizing that I probably wasn’t accomplishing something “authentic.” But in the grand scheme of things, it was delicious, so I wasn’t too worried if someone in the Sui Dynasty would have recognized my concoction as close to their own.

The recipe I tried comes from the blog “Kitchen Swagger” by Shawn Williams. You can find the original post at https://kitchenswagger.com/hibachi-style-fried-rice-recipe/. I added extra garlic powder to my version, and I realized after starting that I was out of peas, so those ended up being left out by necessity (they’ll definitely get added next time). I also updated the directions a bit.

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Hibachi-Style Fried Rice

Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what's sitting in your refrigerator.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword fried rice, Hibachi, rice, takeout

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup carrots diced
  • 1/4 cup peas
  • 1/2 cup onion diced (I used yellow)
  • 2 cups white rice prepared
  • 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 egg beaten

Instructions

  • In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and add the carrots, peas and onion. Saute them for several minutes or until the vegetables are to your desired tenderness.
  • Add the rice to the skillet and stir to combine. Then add the soy sauce, butter, garlic powder and salt and pepper to the skillet and keep stirring so everything is well combined and the butter fully melts.
  • For the last step, slide the rice out of the way and dump in your beaten egg, stirring constantly for a couple minutes until it’s cooked through, and stir it into the rest of the rice mixture.
  • Serve.

We really enjoyed this, and I even made it fancy by packing the rice into a small ramekin and then upturning it onto the plates to make uniform mounds of yummy fried rice on our plates.

I also did technically pick a side on the egg debate. I once listened to a chef who said the egg should be added last, because that keeps it from getting too dry and overcooked, and I thought that made enough sense to make it my practice.

The best part about the history of fried rice, in my opinion, is that it’s really just an excuse to use up whatever you still have laying around your kitchen, so adding other veggies or even some protein is completely within the realm of possibility. In fact, a lot of people argue that day-old rice is the only way to make fried rice taste perfect.

Also, if you want to speed up this process, grab a bag of frozen peas and carrots and use that instead of having to cut up your own veggies.

And if you don’t want to make an entree to go with your fried rice, go ahead and eat it as your main dish for dinner. After doing enough research, I can tell you that the only rule with fried rice is that there really aren’t any rules.

This piece first appeared in print on May 14, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Orange chicken for dinner makes for happy ‘peelings’

Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.

My normal mode for making dinner is to keep it simple. If I find a recipe that takes too many steps or too much waiting in between steps, I skip right over it.

What I do tend to do to myself on a regular basis, though, is to make dinner more complicated than it should have been by having way too many ideas to execute at once.

Such was the case a few nights ago, when I started with wanting to make a recipe for orange chicken, which my sister sent over, ranting and raving about how good it was, and finished by also making from-scratch fried rice and a Japanese clear onion soup.

I began making dinner at around 5 p.m., and Joey didn’t have a plate in front of him until after 7. At least he’s used to my idiosyncrasies, and since the meal was amazing, there were no complaints on his end.

The orange chicken recipe comes from the blog “Dinner, then Dessert,” written by Sabrina Snyder. You can find the original post at https://dinnerthendessert.com/baked-orange-chicken/. I added extra garlic in my version, substituted dried ginger for fresh, and updated the directions a bit for clarity.

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Baked Orange Chicken

Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword baked, orange chicken, take out

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup breadcrumbs or panko
  • cooking spray
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
  • 1 tablespoon dried ginger
  • 6 to 8 cloves minced garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons white wine or rice wine
  • 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 10 tablespoons sugar
  • 10 tablespoons white vinegar
  • zest of one orange

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a large, rimmed baking sheet by lining it with aluminum foil.
  • Cut the chicken thighs into one-inch, bite-sized pieces.
  • Set up three bowls. In the first bowl, add the flour. (I ended up needing a lot more than the 1/2 cup, so be prepared to add more if necessary.) In the second bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. (I also had to add an additional egg by the end of my preparation.) In the third bowl, add the breadcrumbs. (If you’re using panko, run it through a food processor to get it into smaller bits, and again, be prepared to add some extra if necessary.)
  • Dip the chicken into the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs and then place on the baking sheet. Try to keep the pieces from touching each other, but don’t worry about crowding the pan.
  • Spray the coated chicken with cooking spray and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the chicken is golden brown.
  • For the sauce, heat one tablespoon vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and red peppers and stir, sauteing for about 30 seconds.
  • Add the rest of the ingredients, and bring the mixture up to a slow boil, stirring continuously. Once the mixture starts to thicken, remove the sauce from the heat.
  • Once the chicken is finished, toss it in the sauce to coat it and serve.

This was amazing. It tasted just like takeout orange chicken from our favorite Chinese restaurant, so we were really happy with it. It does have a nice, spicy kick to it, so if you’re spice adverse, I’d recommend leaving out the red pepper flakes just to be safe.

We also really enjoyed this as leftovers later in the week, just like real Chinese takeout.

I’m planning on giving you the side dishes the next two weeks if you want to recreate my meal. It was all awesome and paired together nicely.

Really, it all should have come together more quickly if I would have planned ahead, but despite my best efforts, it seems like every recipe ends up taking longer than it should have.

At least I tend to enjoy my time in the kitchen, and especially, the fruits of my labor.

This piece first appeared in print on May 7, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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