Asian breakfast. Fried rice that has everything in it — seafood, vegetables, eggs and rice, of course. Cooks in 15 minutes, minus preparation time. To save time — precious, precious time especially during the morning rush — I use frozen shrimps which has been shelled and cleaned. You can buy them in supermarkets. The tuna that I used for this fried rice is a whole fillet, the kind used for sashimi. Carrots and beans go well with fried rice since they retain their texture and shape despite the tossing and stirring. Broccoli florets, cauliflower, peas and mushrooms are also good choices.
Serves 6.
6 c. of cold cooked rice, grains separated
150 g. of shrimps (shelled weight)
250 g. of tuna fillets, cut into 1-inch cubes
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
12 to 15 string beans, trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch lengths
2 eggs, beaten
6 tbsps. of light soy sauce (I use Kikkoman)
salt
1 tbsp. of chili garlic sauce
4 to 5 tbsps. of vegetable cooking oil
Place the shrimps and tuna in separate bowls. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix to work the seasonings into the flesh of the seafood.
Heat the cooking oil in a wok or frying pan. Pour in the beaten eggs and cook until set. Transfer to a chopping board, roll up and cut into thin strips. Set aide.
In the remaining oil, cook the tuna over high heat, stirring often. When the fish changes color, add the garlic, chopped onion and chili garlic sauce. Cook until fragrant, about a minute. Add the beans and chopped carrot. Stir fry for a minute. Add the shrimps and cook just until they change color.
Add the rice to the seafood and vegetables. Pour in the soy sauce. Stir well. Cook over high heat, stirring often, until the rice is heated through. Add the strips of egg, stir s few times and serve at once.
Simple, isn’t it? But every time I cook rice, I wonder for how long there will be rice in the market. Or for how long we will be able to afford rice.
The rise in the price of rice has set record highs, hoarding and banditry have become rampant but rice is still the staple for most of Asia. Despite claims that the Philippines has the cheapest rice prices in the region, the people are reeling from the non-stop escalation of prices. Some blame the rice crisis on the neglect of farming and unabated population growth but others say it is a convergence of factors including the rapid depreciation of the U.S. dollar.
Malaysians are told to eat less rice but a blogger asks if that is the correct solution in the face of what appears to be continuous irresponsible government spending.
We’re still lucky. Despite the high prices, there is still rice in the market. I’m not going to feel guilty about those who cannot afford the high prices — I did not make things this way. I wish things weren’t so hard for them but I am beyond blaming anyone.
If there is one valuable lesson that we learned from this crisis, it is not to be wasteful. With rice as with all other food items. There was a time when we did not mind leaving rice on our plates knowing the dogs would eat whatever leftovers we had. These days, we are so conscious about the amount of rice we cook for every meal so that leftovers are minimized. And we never place rice on our plates that we cannot consume.
We’ve also felt the sting of the skyrocketing price of rice here in Australia. We used to buy a 10-kilo sack of rice for around A$14, it’s Thai jasmine. Within a month, the price jumped to A$22. Now, we just buy the cheap jasmine rice from Aldi (Germany-based grocery) which used to be $1.49 per kilo, now it’s A$1.69, but still cheaper than Thai jasmine.
We live here in Australia but we can’t afford to buy the best jasmine rice brand (at A$28-$34 per 10-kilo bag). It’s almost as bad as gasoline prices!
Meanwhile, I try to make my son eat cereal for breakfast to cut down on rice consumption. He refuses because cereal doesn’t satisfy him as well as rice does and he gets hungry even before recess. He also takes rice and ulam for lunch in a thermos bottle. I have flavoured oat porridge while my husband usually has noodles for breakfast.
It’s hard to change our attitude about rice, it will never be deposed as our meal staple.
My older daughter Sam cannot live without rice. Even pasta does not satisfy her the way rice does. We’ve been Thai jasmine rice eaters too for years until the prices skyrocketed and my husband started buying cheaper varieties. But the girls complained that the cheaper rice was smelly. My husband went back to Thai jasmine rice and tries to cut costs from other things.
Rice is life, as they say. I am more adventurous in the varieties of rice that we eat, those most of the time, it is usually the Dinorado variety we have. We do enjoy our rice harvest twice a year though our share comes to only a sack. Rice is a must at home,and I tend to give in to my cravings the whole day if I don’t have rice at least once. Better eat rice at least once na lang diba?