Quick-fix meals : My Own Chicken Fried Rice

The testimony to this recipe being really quick (and really easy) is the fact that there are no photos of work in progress while making it.

Confused?

Flash back to yesterday morning when I woke up bleary-eyed after a late night at work. The words that greeted me were not "Rise and shine! Here's some freshly-squeezed orange juice for you!" but, "There's some rice left over from dinner, and I have got out those mini chicken sausages from the freezer. You can make fried rice for your lunch if you wish."

The faintest glimmer of an idea flickered to life in my sleeeeeeepy brain and I dragged myself to the kitchen to put it into action. So sleepy was I that I didn't even bother taking any photos as the dish took shape, even after it started looking rather promising. Now, any dish which gets invented and executed in such a state of sleep deprivation and energyless-ness HAS TO, by necessity, be quick and simple, right? :)

I had not the slightest plan to feature SUCH a quick-fix recipe on the blog - but the rave reviews this dish got at lunch time from my foodie colleagues made it imperative that I document it! So here it is is, in all its glory:

My Own Chicken Fried Rice

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked rice - fluffed out with a fork
5-6 mini chicken sausages (cocktail sausages) - I used tandoori flavoured ones, but any spicy normal-sized sausage/leftover kebab will do.
1 egg
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 a capsicum, chopped the same size as the onion
1-2 green chillies, chopped (optional)
chilli sauce, vinegar (optional), salt - to taste
1 tbsp oil


Method:

Heat half the oil in a frying pan, and add the sausages (don't bother thawing them completely) While they are being fried, you can chop the onion, garlic, chilli and capsicum.

Once the sausages look golden-brown and start splitting at their sides, pull them out of the pan. Add the rest of the oil to the sausage-flavoured oil+juices in the pan, bring the heat up, and add the onion, garlic and green chilli. Stir for a minute.

Add the capsicum, and stir for a couple of minutes

Add the vinegar, salt and chilli sauce. I used Nando's Peri Peri sauce which was hot-and-sour so I didn't use vinegar.

Break open one egg, and stir the contents in the pan till the egg has scrambled

Add the rice. Give it a just one or two brisk stirs, don't keep mixing the rice once its in, else the grains will break (cooked rice is fragile!)

Slice the sausages into bite-sized chunks. Add to the rice, give it one final mix-through, taste, adjust the seasoning and turn off the flame.

The rice will improve in flavour in a few hours' time - the egg, sausage and chilli needs time to permeate the rice and make it delicious. So it is an ideal lunch box dish that you whip up in the morning but eat it hours later at lunch time!