Fried Rice with Peas

From Katherine Deumling of Cook With What You Have

This is the quintessential quick dinner, utilizing whatever bits and pieces you have on hand. Snap or snow peas, pea shoots, chard stems (if you made the Swiss Chard pancakes below), all work well in this dish. Quantities are all approximations and you can vary them as you like. You just want to be sure you cut the vegetables finely and fairly uniformly and you don’t want to crowd your skillet or wok. To avoid a soggy dish you need to be brave with the heat level and steer away from vegetables that give off a lot of liquid like tomatoes or zucchini, though finely diced zucchini would work well with enough heat, later in the season!

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked, cooled rice (I recommend making short-grain brown rice as described below, if you can)
• 2 tablespoons coconut, sunflower or olive oil
• 1/2 a medium onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic,
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1-2 ounces of bacon, cut into small dice
• 1 1/2 cups of peas snow and/or snap peas, cut into 1/2-1-inch pieces
• 2 cups pea shoots, chopped
• 1 Serrano chili, seeded (if you don’t want it very spicy) and finely chopped or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2-3 teaspoons Tamari or soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce (or to taste)
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped basil, mint or cilantro (or a combination)
• Salt

Directions

Heat the oil in a wok or wide skillet over high heat. Add the onions, garlic, ginger, peas, Serrano chili, and bacon and cook stirring very frequently for about 3 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the rice and pea shoots and mix everything very well. Cook for about three more minutes to heat the rice through and wilt the pea shoots. Then push the contents of the pan to one side and add the eggs to the empty spot and scramble them until almost set. A few stray peas or rice kernels will make their way in which is just fine. You just don’t want to mix the raw egg into the rice right away since you’ll loose track of it as it just coats the kernels instead of scrambling. When the eggs are almost set, mix them gently into the rice, add the soy and fish sauce, stir well and then mix in the herbs. Adjust seasoning–it may need salt or more soy or fish sauce or a squeeze of lime juice–and serve immediately. Serves 4 (more or less)