Rice stir-fry

This works best with rice that has completely cooled down, or better yet, been made earlier and kept in the fridge. But if you can’t prepare rice in advance, you can still cook it and pop it into the fridge while you’re cooking the rest.

serves 4 as a main, 6 as a aside

Ingredients

• • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• • 250g long-grain or basmati rice
• • 50g frozen peas
• • 2 cloves of garlic
• • a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
• • a small bunch of fresh coriander
• • 1 fresh large red chilli
• • a small bunch of spring onions
• • 1 small red capsicum
• • 100g button mushrooms
• • 1 x 225g tin water chestnuts
• • 2 large eggs, preferably free-range or organic
• • 1 lime
• • peanut oil
• • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• • sesame oil

To prepare your stir-fry

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• Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the rice and cook according to the packet instructions or see the Fluffy ricerecipe
• Drain the rice in a sieve, run it under a cold tap to cool, then allow to dry out in the fridge
• Get the peas out of the freezer so they start to thaw

To prepare your stir-fry

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• Peel and finely slice the garlic cloves
• Peel and finely chop the ginger
• Pick and roughly chop the coriander leaves, finely chop the stalks

To prepare your stir-fry

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• Halve, deseed and finely chop the chilli
• Trim and finely slice the spring onions
• Halve, deseed and roughly chop the capsicum

To prepare your stir-fry

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• Slice the button mushrooms
• Drain and finely slice the water chestnuts
• Crack the eggs into a small bowl and beat well
• Halve the lime

To cook your stir-fry

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• Preheat a wok or large frying pan on a high heat and once it’s very, very hot add a good lug of peanut oil and swirl it around
• Add the garlic, ginger, coriander stalks and chilli
• Stir and cook for a minute or so until starting to turn golden, then add the spring onions, red capsicum and mushrooms

To cook your stir-fry

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• Stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes then add the cooled rice, peas and water chestnuts
• Keep stirring and frying for 5 minutes until the rice is warmed through, then add the eggs
• Keep stirring and when the rice is steaming hot and the egg is cooked into strands going through the rice, add a few splashes of soy sauce and a couple of lugs of sesame oil

To cook your stir-fry

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• Squeeze over the juice from your lime halves and sprinkle over your reserved coriander leaves
• Mix well and take the pan off the heat
• Have a taste and season with salt and pepper or a little extra sesame oil or soy sauce if it needs it
• Serve straight away