Snow Pea-and-Pork Fried Rice...

Do you have a favorite method of cooking rice - especially brown rice? For the longest time, I've always just done the absorption method, usually using a ratio of a scant 2 cups water to 1 cup of rice. However, lately I've been using the pasta-style method that I read recently while browsing through a book by Alice Waters.

Basically, you bring a large pot of water to a boil, salted if desired, toss in rinsed brown rice and let it boil, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes. The water is drained away and the rice is placed back into the hot pot, tightly covered and left to steam, off heat, for about 10 minutes. I've found that 25 minutes yields rice that is firm and chewy while after 30 the rice is still chewy, just a bit more soft and tender.

The grains are consistently light, still intact and fluffy without being mushy at all - I used this method this morning so the rice had enough time to chill out in the refrigerator to make this Snow Pea-and-Pork Fried Rice for tonight's dinner.

There is one thing you want to keep in mind for stir-frys - have all your ingredients chopped and prepped before you start heating the pan because the action moves quite fast! Scrambling a couple eggs was up first. Once they were done and removed, strips of boneless pork chops that we briefly marinated in soy sauce and dry sherry were next to hit the shimmering toasted sesame oil in our skillet. Since the pork was thinly sliced, they take literally a minute or two to cook through.

Sliced onions, snow peas and a handful of chopped broccoli florets were on tap to be tossed in - after a couple minutes of rockin' and rollin', pungent fresh ginger and a couple cloves worth of minced garlic were added. The ample veggie mixture was then transferred to the plate with the pork to keep warm while we heated up another drizzle of dark sesame oil in the pan. That chilled nutty brown rice was then added to the skillet and left to sit for a minute to heat up - all the cooked ingredients were then thrown back in and tossed together to warm through. Finished with a shower of mild green onions, Jeff and I both thought this would good, but we think it could have used a little more "oomph". Maybe a little tamari or regular soy sauce at the end? I also think we should have just poured the eggs in at the end and let it scramble during the tossing process to remove a step.

Recipes
Snow Pea-and-Pork Fried Rice