Food Lust People Love: one pot meals

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Crawfish Fried Rice

An easy one pot meal, this spicy crawfish fried rice includes carrots and cabbage and is seasoned with garlic, ginger and chili peppers. It’s an ideal way to turn leftover rice into a tasty new delight.

During crawfish season here in the US south, a lot of restaurants advertise boiled crawfish specials. One nearby, serving a mix of Vietnamese and American fare, did something different: crawfish fried rice. Well, you know I had to go and try it! Shout out to Hughie's!

It was very tasty and I couldn’t wait to get home and try to make my own version. Fortunately frozen crawfish are readily available year round in the freezer section at all my local grocery stores so we don’t have to wait for crawfish season to enjoy this dish.

My only regret is that my grandmother isn't still here so I could make it for her. She was an adventurous eater and one of her favorite restaurants in her small Louisiana town was a Chinese buffet. True story: We held the celebration of my grandparents gold anniversary (50 years of marriage) in that very restaurant.

They had a function room so we were able to speechify and honor them but still enjoy my grandmother's favorite dishes. (And my speech was well-received and everyone laughed in the appropriate places, a boost to the young speech writer that I was.) It was a good time!

Crawfish Fried Rice

This recipe makes about 3-4 servings, depending on how hungry your eaters are. If you can’t find cooked, frozen crawfish where you live, substitute cooked shrimp instead.

Ingredients

1 medium carrot

1/4 medium cabbage

4 cloves garlic

2 in or 5cm knob ginger

2 small red chili peppers

2 tablespoons canola or other light oil

5 cups or 650g day-old cold, cooked rice

12 oz or 340g cooked crawfish tails

1 egg

1 teaspoon oyster sauce

2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine

1 tablespoon sesame oil

Optional: 2-3 sprigs cilantro for garnish

Method

Peel, crush and mince the garlic. Peel and mince the ginger. Finely slice the chili peppers and discard the stems. Peel or scrub the carrot and cut it into matchsticks. Core the cabbage and slice it thinly.

A cutting board with sliced cabbage, matchstick carrots, slices chili peppers, minced garlic and ginger

In a small bowl, whisk the egg with the oyster sauce and set aside.

A small bowl with egg and oyster sauce, with a whisk leaning up against it.

Heat canola oil in wok or a large non-stick skillet. Add in the garlic, ginger and chili peppers.

A frying pan with oil and minced ginger and garlic and sliced red chili peppers.

Cook for a minute or two and then add in the carrot.

The same frying pan with matchstick carrots added.

Cook another two minutes and push the ingredients to the sides of the pan. Pour in the egg and cook stirring until the egg is done and it’s in small curds.

The same frying pan with cooked egg in the middle.

Stir everything together again then add the crawfish.

The same frying pan with cooked crawfish added.

Cook on high heat for 30 seconds then add the rice.

The same frying pan with cooked white rice added.

Stir well to combine the rice with the other ingredients, then add the sliced cabbage.

The same frying pan with sliced cabbage added.

Cook until the rice starts to get crispy then pour in the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil. Stir again to combine.

The same frying pan with soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil being added.

Serve garnished with cilantro, if desired.

Enjoy!

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes made with rice as a central ingredient. Many thanks to our host, Sneha of Sneha’s Recipe. Check out the link list below.

Crawfish Fried Rice from Food Lust People Love
Insalata da Riso from Pandemonium Noshery
Instant Pot Chicken and Rice from A Day in the Life on the Farm
Palak Rice from Mayuri’s Jikoni
Pork Stir Fry Skillet from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
Quick Shrimp Fried Rice with Peas and Carrots from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
Spanish Rice from Palatable Pastime
Split Green Moong Khichdi /Chilkewali Moong Dal Khichdi from Sneha’s Recipe

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Sunday, January 24, 2021

Indian-spiced Pork Chop Potato Skillet

In this Indian-Spiced Pork Chop Potato Skillet you cook the chops till tender in a spicy tomato-onion sauce. Add potatoes and you have a full meal in one pan.

I’ve written before about what an adventurous eater my mom is. Such a role model! She can’t pass a road stand or food stall without trying whatever they are serving up. Of course, being from southern Louisiana, eating spicy is in our blood, but when we moved to Trinidad, the flavors and spices we were introduced to, and she began to use in her cooking, increased exponentially.

At the ripe old age of five, I was already a curry addict. After three years we moved on to the next country but Mom kept making curry. It was a true family favorite. The meat might vary - beef or chicken or pork -but there had to be potatoes and, since that was the tradition, she served it over white rice.

Indian-spiced Pork Chop Potato Skillet

This recipe isn’t strictly a curry but it certainly has many of the same flavors. I adapted it from a pressure cooker recipe on Magpie’s Recipes to go with the Keralan appam I made for a Bread Bakers event, so I skipped the rice. Appam looks like a lacy crepe and it’s made with a fermented rice batter, so I figured I did have rice, just in another form. You can serve it with rice, if you want to, but it’s a great one-pan skillet meal even without it, thanks to the potatoes!

Ingredients

4 thick pork chops – about 225g or 1/2 lb each

3 tablespoons vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 medium onions, sliced thin (about 3/4 lb or 350g before peeling)

2 ripe beef steak or equivalent other tomatoes, cored and chopped (about 1 1/4 lbs or 600g whole)

5 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed (about 1 3/4 lbs or 790g whole)

1 stick cinnamon

3 cloves

3 green cardamom pods

1 teaspoon ground cayenne

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

Chopped green onions to garnish, if desired.

Method

Use a mallet to pound the meat part of the pork chops flat. Sprinkle them with the vinegar and season with the salt, sugar and pepper.

Cover them with cling film and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for several hours, or even overnight.

Heat one tablespoon of oil in your skillet and fry the chops two at a time over a high heat until browned on both sides. This should just take 3-4 minutes a side. Apologies for the lack of photos of this step. The chops kept spitting at the camera lens as they fried. Remove the chops to a clean plate.

Drizzle in the second tablespoon of olive oil and add in the onions. Turn the fire down to medium and cook the onions for 5-6 minutes or until softened, breaking apart the slices with your stirring spoon.