Fried Rice Hawaiian Style

On my last post, I was thinking of giving everyone my twist on how to make fried rice. It's a pretty simple recipe, hope you give it a try. I may list a few things by brand name because I think that is where all the flavor comes from. Here in the islands they are readily available, but you may find some of these products down at the local Chinese store in your area. I also include bacon as part of the recipe, but leave it out if you don't eat meat. You may use vegetable oil instead. Enjoy.

Fried Rice Hawaiian Style

10 -cups cooked medium grain rice

1/4 -cup Aloha brand shoyu sauce (or Kikoman)

1/4- cup oyster sauce

1 -cup bacon sliced thin

1 -medium onion diced small

3- eggs scrambled

1/4 -cup green onions chopped small

Cook the rice well ahead of time, maybe the day before, and chill. We normally make fried rice out of our leftover rice, it is easier to work with when cold. Place cold rice in a large bowl. You need to break it apart first by sprinkling a little cold water on it. Wash your hands first and with your wet hands break apart the rice, making sure that there are no clumps.

Add the shoyu and oyster sauce, and with your hands again, work into the rice, making sure the sauces are evenly distributed. Set aside for about 5 minutes.

In the meantime, cook the scrambled eggs as if making a crepe or looking like a tortilla shell. Set aside to cool.

Place a large frying pan or wok on burner. preheat on medium. Add bacon, when half cooked add onions and cook till translucent. Turn heat up to medium high. Add the marinated rice and stir fry scrapping the bottom of pan if needed. Add most of the green onions, saving some for garnish. Season with salt or pepper if needed. Stir fry till rice gets hot. Remove rice from pan and place in serving dish.

Slice the cooked eggs into 1" strips. Garnish fried rice with the eggs and green onions.

Serves 6-8

Cooking My Life Away

I started cooking at the early age of eight, being the oldest girl , my mom figured that I would be of the most help to her, I guess she had other things in mind for my two older brothers to do, you know back in the day where girls did girl things and boys did everything else. If it wasn't for that so called rule I would probably be an auto mechanic or I would have a black belt in karate today or something like that.

I started off by cooking rice on the stove top, no such thing as the electric rice cooker back then, or maybe it was to expensive, I would need to do some research on that, anyway, I would get a pot, measure out 5 cups of medium grain rice, we loved our rice, dump the rice in the pot and begin to wash it, and rinse it, repeating that for about three or four times. When the water got clear, I would pour all the water I could, out of the pot, and proceed to measure out a little water to the rice. I did this by pointing my index finger on the top of the rice and filling the water to about the first line of my middle finger. I still measure out the water this way except I use the electric rice cooker now.

Now that the water is in, I place the pot on the burner, with the cover on, turn it on high and wait for it to boil. When it first starts to boil, I take the cover off for about a minute, turn it down to low, place the cover back on the pot, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes or so.

That was my first experience in a kitchen, and it wasn't my last. As I got older my mom would make me do breakfast, pancakes, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, and hot cocoa. Of course that was only on the weekends, on school days we would have a quick bowl of oatmeal or cream of wheat with some toast and hot chocolate.

Those were the days alright, had a lot of fun, learned the basics of cooking, did some baking, and of course, the cleaning up was just as important.

Today I'm still cooking, maybe next time I'll put up a recipe for something else , maybe fried rice, island style or something.