Marinara Vegetable Fried Rice – The Great Left Over

Marinara Vegetable Fried Rice – As a busy mum and dad, you will love it! So do my husband and I and my little tricky two and half years old daughter.

Grown up in a Vietnamese family, I love rice. We can have rice at all meals of the day. We need rice as much as the German need bread. Mixed fried rice is one of most popular dishes in many Asian countries such as Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Korea,… What has made it popular? I think it’s not only the fact that it is such an amazing flavourful, satisfying dish with variety of ingredients but also is a great way to finish up all the left-over in your pantry / fridge.

Many years ago, in Vietnam, when food, in general, were still expensive and having breakfast was something not every family could afford, mixed fried rice was considered as a happy-no-cost breakfast. I still remember, years ago when we (I mean my sister, brother and I) were small, my grandmother or mum would get up early like every morning and sometimes grandma and mum would make us this filling and satisfying food before we were off to school.

A nice fried rice dish should not be mushy at all. In order to do that, you should use the left over plain steamed rice from the previous night or if you can’t wait, you can also use the steamed rice cooked and chilled for about few hours before frying. One of the things I like about mixed fried rice is it does not limit / restrict you in term of the ingredients. You can use almost what ever you want, except ingredients that would make the dish become mushy, sticky.  

About a year ago, my husband and I discovered an amazing seafood market in Marrickville which offers fresh and high quality seafood with the best price, called Faros Brothers Seafood Market. We love to drive there on Saturdays and get our freezer packed with baramundi, salmon, squid, prawn, marinara (a mixture of clams, prawns, squids, fishes) … which would be enough for our seafood meals for at least three weeks or so. We love the quality of the marinara there. However, recently when we could not make time to that seafood market in Marrickville, we  just buy a bag of frozen marinara in Coles. Surprisingly the quality of this frozen marinara is great, too. I just have to thaw it and drain well before cooking.

In this Marinara Vegetable Fried Rice recipe, I did not follow any authentic method of any Asian country to create the mixed fried rice. I love being adventurous sometimes so I added a little turmeric (that used in some Indonesian fried rice dishes), pine apple (that you would find in Thai fried rice) and the fish sauce (that you would find in Thai and Vietnamese fried rice) to create my own marinara vegetable dish. Once again, as a busy mum and dad, you will love it, I am sure!

Serve: 04 people

Prepare time: 5 minutes                   Cooking time: 25 minutes                 Total time: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

• 1¹⁄₂ cup of jasmine rice (to make left-over steamed rice)
• 400 gr marinara (thawed if frozen), drained
• 6 big French shallot, thinly sliced (devided equaly into three portions)
• 6 table spoon oilve oil
• 5 tea spoons fish sauce
• 3 tea spoon chicken stock powder
• 1/4 tea spoon turmeric powder
• 1/2 carrot, diced
• 1/3 cup of green pea (thawed if frozen)
• 1/4 cup frozen corn, thawed
• 2/3 cup fresh pineapple, diced
• grounded black pepper

METHOD:

1. heat up a deep frying pan at high heat, add 3 table spoons of olive oil and fry 1/3 French shallot slices until it turns light brown then add the left over steamed rice in the pan and stir constantly with a wooden spoon for 7 minutes at high heat. Add 3 tea spoons fish sauce, 2 tea spoons chicken stock, stir constantly for 3 minutes until the rice is light golden. Remove the rice to a big bowl.
2. Add 1 table spoon of olive oil in the frying pan and fry 1/3 of the French shallot slices. Add the drained marinara in, stir and fry for 3 minutes at high heat. Add all the vegetables in, stir for 2 minutes. Add 2 tea spoon fish sauce and 1 tea spoons chicken stock, stir for 5 minutes.
3. Add the fried rice in the fried marinara, add grounded black pepper and turmeric powder in and stir gently and constantly for 5 minutes at medium high heat.
4. At the same time, in another small frying pan, heat up 2 table spoons of olive oil and fry the rest of the French shallot until golden brown and crunchy, set aside.
5. Divide the marinara vegetable fried rice in individual serving plates / bowls and sprinkle the fried french shallot on top. Ready to serve. TIP: Serve with some chili sauce as you wish