I like to think of this as the Punky Brewster of fried rice dishes. While seafood and pork versions would easily get upstaged by lots of vegetables, vegetarian versions are as colorful as your market’s produce section allows. Today I brought home green beans, purple cabbage, and red and yellow bell peppers to go with my blackish shiitake mushrooms. To my knowledge there are no blue vegetables in existence, or I would have gotten them too.
My recipe eschews the scramble egg that is so many other fried rices. It doesn’t seem needed, with so many textures already, but you can certainly throw some in for protein. As for the vegetables, the only important factor is that they are chopped small to cook quickly. This is a good way to use up not only leftover rice, but also whatever produce is close to being tossed out.
As for the rice, I always use cold rice for stir-frying because it has the right stiffness. But if you don’t have leftovers and absolutely must make this (I’m touched), try cooking your fresh rice with a little less water.
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More vegetarian Chinese recipes to try:
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Vegetable Fried Rice
Serves 2
5 or 6 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 to 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 large red bell pepper, chopped small
1/2 large yellow bell pepper, chopped small
1/2 cup purple cabbage, chopped small
1 small handful green beans, chopped small
2 tablespoons light soy sauce or oyster sauce
3 cups leftover white rice
Salt and pepper to taste
Soak shiitake mushrooms in a bowl of water for 20 minutes until softened. Drain, squeeze out water, and chop them small.
Heat up enough oil to coat the bottom half of your wok or bottom of your large skillet. Add ginger and garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add bell peppers, cabbage, and green beans and stir-fry for 4 minutes. Pour in half the soy sauce or oyster sauce and mix to coat. Add rice, then other half of the sauce and mix again to coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve in individual portions or in one big bowl.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Punky Brewster! LOL.
The colors are indeed striking.
The rice looks beautiful, and so healthy too, loaded up with all those veggies! you could submit this to my Healthy cooking event, you know!:)
ooo. grated ginger? i’ll definitely have to give that a try in my fried rice the next time round. beautiful colours! my mum will be so impressed. she loves colourful food. she says it’s what constitutes presentation and i have to agree.
My husband loves fried rice as well,he always eats more when we have it for dinner.
Blue veg….. how about blue potatos? that’s more like purple
Blue corn? I haven’t seen it in real, have only had it in my Body Shop facial scrub mask, hehe
I love the colours, fantastic. I can’t get enough of the blog.
I didn’t even think of blue corn. And I saw them last week all over the markets too.
Thanks! I can’t get enough of my readers.
hey Diana, that looks beautiful. Reminds me of some cool rice we had with an entirely tofu meal in Tokyo the other day (bottom right of the set):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26731079@N05/2656877995/
The colours were great and blueberry in rice tasted surprising but cool.
Blueberries in rice…now that’s an idea. I’m digging your photostream. Seems like you’re having a great time in Japan!
Wonderful vegetable choices. The colors are so vibrant!
Its so colorful and nutritious………….
like this .