Picture: Unsplash
YIELD
2
I’ve used prawns in this version, but you can use slivered beef, pork, chicken, tofu, whatever. Feel free to pull back the chilli, too, if you like. You can always add extra heat later. Three words of cooking caution: firstly, when you add the rice, you may be tempted to add more oil. Don’t do it. It will make the dish claggy. Keep breaking up the rice as you stir it through the wok, and work through it. Secondly, if you want to make this for more than two, by all means do. But don’t double up all the ingredients and throw it all into one wok. Make the dish once, wipe out your wok, and go again with the second batch. Thirdly, make sure the cooked rice is at room temperature when you make this. If it’s too warm and steamy, it will clump and stick. If it’s too cold, it will turn out as hard as a rock.
Ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
180 g/6 oz peeled prawns (shrimp)
2–3 Thai bird’s eye chillies, chopped
1 tbsp nam pla (fish sauce)
1 tbsp light soy sauce
a good pinch of sugar
500 g/1 lb 2 oz/41⁄2 cups cooked rice (about 240 g/81⁄2 oz/11⁄3 cups uncooked rice)
1⁄2 onion, peeled and finely sliced
1 spring onion (scallion), green part only, sliced
a good grinding of white pepper
fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves, to garnish
cucumber slices, to serve
lime wedges, to serve
Method
Heat the wok or frying pan (skillet) until it’s very hot. Add the oil, then the garlic and stir-fry until golden. Add the prawns and the chillies, and carry on stirring, adding the nam pla, soy sauce and sugar, until the prawns are cooked. Add the cooked rice and stir through well, breaking up any clumps. Add the onion and the spring onion and incorporate well.
Season with white pepper, then turn on to plates and serve sprinkled with coriander and with the cucumber slices and lime wedges on the side.
A recipe from Baan: Recipes and Stories from My Thai Home by Kay Plunkett-Hogge (Pavilion Books). Buy the book here.
This recipe originally appeared on House & Garden UK.
