Don’t be surprised if I told you I have an entire Pandora’s box full of rice recipes. Serve me anything with rice and I will shamelessly plow through it. This could be because both my parents were raised in parts of India where rice is a part of every meal. With that being said, I have resigned to the fact that I am genetically designed to love rice. One of my favorite things to make out of rice is fried rice. It’s a one pot meal for an entire family, and the best part is: you can customize it with the vegetables and protein of your choice. Now, this particular fried rice is very popular across the globe. If you were at a Thai restaurant and catch yourself shamelessly staring at the table next to you that was served something in an elegantly carved pineapple boat (bowl); there is high chance it was pineapple fried rice. If your intent is to make this fried rice that is just as good or perhaps even better than your favorite Thai restaurant, I have some tips and tricks learned from my many fried rice catastrophes – that I hope will help you avoid the mistakes I made.
- First tip is to prep all your ingredients before anything hits the flame- get the chopping, mixing, blending out of your way. When cooking food at high heat, there is not much time to prep things as you go. If you are too slow you can burn or over cook.
- Second rule is to group your ingredients. If you have multiple sauces in the recipe, you can measure and combine them together in a bowl. And the same process can be done with all the spices.
- As with any fried rice make sure to cook the rice slightly ahead of time and al dente. If the rice is overcooked, your fried rice may turn into a mushy mess (porridge).
Now that you have all the tricks under your sleeve, I am confident you will be the Pharaoh of your Pineapple Fried Rice!
Serves: 2
Total time: 32 minutes (Prep time: 10 mins + 12 minutes)
INGREDIENTS
- Pineapple — diced into ¼ inch cube pieces (make sure to pat dry and remove all the moisture from the pineapple)
- Shrimp or prawns — deveined, tail removed and patted dry, 1 ½ cup or about 25 medium shrimp.
- Eggs — 2
- Bird’s eye (Thai) chili — 1 (optional)
- Crushed red pepper (chili flakes) — 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon
- Curry powder —1 ½ tablespoon
- Fish sauce— 1 ½ tablespoon
- Soy sauce or Liquid Aminos — 1 tablespoon
- Honey or agave nectar or sugar —1 ½ tablespoon
- Jasmine rice — cooked al dente, 4 cups
- Cashew — 1/3 cup
- Golden raisins — 2 tablespoons
- Onion — half of an onion, chopped
- Green onion — 2 shoots, chopped
- Cucumber — sliced, 10 slices
- Garlic — 2 large cloves, finely chopped
- Avocado Oil — 2 tablespoons
- Salt — 1/4 teaspoon or to taste
DIRECTIONS
Prepping the Ingredients
- Dice, chop and slice: Prep the onion, garlic, pineapple, green (spring) onions, chili, vegetable (peas, carrots, mushrooms) and protein of your choice, as suggested in the ingredient list. Set it all aside on a plate.
The bulb (white part) of the green onion will be used in the fried rice and the stalk (green part) will be used along with cucumber at the end to garnish. - Mixing the ingredients: In 3 smalls bowls combine the following ingredients. First combine the dry spices i.e. crushed chili flakes, curry powder and salt. In the second bowl combine all the sauces i.e. the fish sauce, soy sauce and honey. Lastly, in the third combine the cashew and the raisins.
Making the Fried Rice
- Heat a wok on medium high and add the avocado oil. It should take about 2 to 3 minutes for the oil to heat up.
- Add the shrimp (protein) and sauté for about 4 minutes. Then add the cashews and the raisins and sauté all three for another 2 minutes. Remove the shrimp and cashew mixture from the wok and set aside.
If you are vegan, you can add vegetables such as green peas, snap peas, carrots, mushrooms, at this point. Sauté for about 2 to 3 minutes and add the rice. - Now add the eggs and scramble it. Cook the egg for about 2 minutes and then add the rice.
- After 2 to 3 minutes, add the onions and cook for about a minute or so. When the onions look slightly translucent, add the chopped garlic and Thai chili, stir and let it cook for another minute.
- Add the shrimp, cashew- raisin combo along with the the spice mix. Mix it until the rice is covered with spices and changes its color to a pale yellow. This process shouldn’t take more than a minute.
- Add the concoction of sauces and repeat the stirring process until each rice is coated with the sauce.
- Finally, add the pineapple and green onions, stir until you notice that the pineapple starts to slightly caramelize or change its color.
- You may serve it on a platter with cucumber on the side or if you wish to show off your culinary skills you may choose to serve it in a pineapple boat(bowl).
NOTES
- Shrimp: If you have large sized shrimp, you can cut them into bite sized pieces. The shrimp used for this recipe were Key West pink shrimp. Cooking shrimp can be tricky so make sure to pay attention to that. Large sized shrimp if cooked whole will take about 5 to 6 minutes, medium (cooked whole) may take about 4 to 5 minutes. If you chop the shrimp or they are small sized, they should take no longer than 4 minutes.
- Pineapple: This recipe tastes best with fresh pineapple. However, if you decide to use canned pineapple, make sure to remove any extra moisture. You can do this by patting it dry with a paper towel.
- Curry powder: It’s a very popular spice blend in Thai cooking. It is believed to be a Southeast Asian influence on Thai cuisine. Though curry powder is easily available these days in any local grocery store, you can make your own curry blend by dry roasting and grinding the following spices in the following ratio: Black peppercorn- 1 tablespoon, cloves- 1 tablespoon, coriander seeds-1 tablespoon, fennel seeds – 1 tablespoon, cumin seeds – 1 tablespoon, seeds from 8 cardamom pods, paprika- 1 to 3 tablespoons (depending on your tolerance for heat), Ground turmeric- 3 tablespoon and ground ginger- 2 tables spoon. This can be stored at room temperature for about 6 months.
- Al dente: This is a method of cooking rice, pasta or vegetables where they are firm to bite. To achieve this, you will need to slightly under cook the rice. When the rice is later added with other ingredients to make the fried rice, the rice gets cooked completely. This gives you the perfect fried rice and not a mushy mess.
- Avocado Oil: Can be replaced with canola oil, or any other odorless cooking oil of your choice. Avoid Olive oil, it is not used in Asian cooking.
