Chinese Flag

I made Chinese food!  You have no idea how excited I am. I don’t eat Chinese food. Correction, I can’t eat Chinese food or most food from the continent of Asia. Asian dishes are filled with ingredients that I’m severely allergic to; sesame, beans, sometimes nuts and a variety of fruits that are a no-no for me.

Someday maybe I’ll do a Sh*t Non-Allergic People Say to People With Food Allergies post about all the dumb (I should probably be nice and call it naive, but whatev) stuff people say to me about my food allergies. One of my favorites is when I mention that I don’t eat at certain restaurants, like for example Chinese, and someone says, “No I looked and there is one thing on the menu that you can eat.”

One thing on the menu coming out of a kitchen serving nothing but foods that have the potential to kill me. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

Let me put it to you this way; you walk in to a room one day and notice something innocuous in the center of the room, let’s say a bouquet of flowers. Now you obviously can live without the flowers though they might be nice to have, but here’s the problem; you notice that the rest of the room surrounding the flowers is rigged up from floor to ceiling with death traps. Everywhere you look is barbed wire, grenades, land mines. Now think, are the flowers really worth it? I didn’t think so.

So no I don’t normally eat Chinese food, but imagine my surprise and delight to learn that I safely could make Fried Rice and keep it reasonably authentic! After much Googling and confirming with my friend Janet, whose parents hail from Hong Kong, I’ve learned that Fried Rice is very traditionally Chinese though not necessarily the way we find it in American restaurants.

Fried Rice, I’ve learned, is basically a great way for Chinese moms to use leftovers. You can basically put whatever you want in to it which means I don’t have to put in anything I’m allergic to make it authentic. The only must for traditional Fried Rice is that you must use rice that’s at least one day old.

Though I wanted to keep the flavors Chinese, I didn’t want to buy entire bottles of Fish Sauce or Chinese Five Spice so I made “Fake A** Fish Sauce” and used the 3 out of 5 of the Chinese Five Spice Mixture that I had.

There’s not really a recipe here since I just Googled around for some methods and just threw together what looked good to me, but here’s what I used:

• Ginger
• Garlic
• Mushrooms
• Carrots
• Baby Bok Choy
• Scallions
• Scrambled Eggs
• Day old rice
• Fake A** Fish Sauce with vaguely Chinese spices (anchovy paste, molasses, a tiny bit of hot water, black pepper, ground cloves, ground fennel and ground ninnamon)

Basically I infused the oil with the Garlic and Ginger first and then threw in everything but the sauce. When it was done I put the Fried Rice in a bowl and mixed in the sauce.

Fried Rice with Fake A** Fish Sauce

FINAL VERDICT: B+

This was a really fun thing to make since what you put in to it is entirely up to you. I believe strongly in limiting meat consumption and like to always have a stash of vegetarian recipes so, other than the anchovy paste, I kept this veg, but if I ever have meat leftover in my fridge I would definitely throw that in. Also, my friend Janet offered to give me some of her stash of dried shrimp which I would definitely like to try adding in next time.

All in all this is a great idea for repurposing leftovers so if you make it don’t be afraid to get creative. If you have kids this would be a great recipe to involve them in too. Kids tend to be more adventurous eaters when they’ve had a hand in the process so let them choose the vegetables they’d like to go in to the Fried Rice and, depending on their ages, have them help with some of the prep.