Australian fried rice

Being Chinese I’ve eaten a lot of rice. I’ve also eaten a lot of fried rice. I reckon my Mum’s fried rice was the best. She always used rice that had been cooked a day or so before. It was always immediately refrigerated after the first cooking to avoid food poisoning. It amazes me the number of reports I read of people becoming ill because of improperly cooked and stored food.


 

Food safety alert

Rice is a well known vector for Bacillus cereus food poisoning. Eating contaminated food can result in nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea depending on the toxin elaborated. Proper handling eliminates the risk. Rice that is not going to be eaten immediately should be refrigerated immediately and kept between 0 and 5 °C. Poor cooking technique can results in endospores surviving and poor storage then allows spores to germinate allowing toxins to be elaborated.  Don’t be a mug (that’s Australian for idiot), cook and store your food properly.


 

While I had leftover ingredients for tonight’s dinner and I fixed on cooking them together the mordant was when I read Lorraine Elliot’s post in Not Quite Nigella this morning. Lorraine describes her Mum’s Nasi Goreng.

So my Australian fried rice comes about through the delicious union of leftover roasted vegetables and leftover rice and quinoa. The roasted vegetables I used tonight were made with bacon rather than SPAM®.

So I give you Australian fried rice. It contains broccoli, potato, sweet potato, onion, capsicum, fennel seeds, jalapeño peppers, chili flakes, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, peas, corn, carrots, rice, quinoa and bacon. I reckon it would taste good with some SPAM® and for an Asian touch some Chinese sausage (lup cheong not a Chinese man’s sausage).

I also cooked it in a wok for that authentic Asian touch.


Let’s go back in time to the roast vegetables leftovers

Hot and spicy roasted vegetables and bacon
Hot and spicy roasted vegetables and bacon ready for the oven
Hot and spicy roasted vegetables and bacon
Hot and spicy roasted vegetables and bacon straight from the oven
Hot and spicy roasted vegetables and bacon
Hot and spicy roasted vegetables and bacon on my plate

Sorry for the diversion but this was this morning’s breakfast. A pan fried bagel and cream cheese. Yes, I fried the bagel in butter.

Pan fried bagel with cream cheese
Pan fried bagel with cream cheese

So this is the Australian fried rice

Australian fried rice with bacon and quinoa
Australian fried rice with bacon and quinoa

A close up

Australian fried rice with bacon and quinoa
Australian fried rice with bacon and quinoa

I needed an Australian dessert. Cadbury’s Vegemite chocolate. I love it!

Vegemite chocolate
Vegemite chocolate

Would you make Australian fried rice?

6 Responses

  1. That looks amazingly tasty Gary and I like the amount of vegetables in it too! Thank you so much for the lovely shout out!

    P.S. Apparently rice is a rather common item to get food poisoning from. Oz Harvest don’t collect items with either shellfish or cooked rice in them!

    1. It’s a pleasure Lorraine. Reading the first paragraph of yesterday’s NQN post sealed the deal. I was thinking about it at work all day.
      Shellfish can be really bad, even in established high reputation restaurants. I’ve personally been infected with Vibrio parahæmolyticus from a Brisbane seafood restaurant. When I lived in Darwin, a very popular Thai place spread Norovirus through Japanese sourced oyster meat. They now only buy oyster meat from South Australia.

  2. Don’t think I will attempt to make Australian fried rice since I’m no chef and not much of a cook. However, I will certainly eat it if you cook and plate it up in front of me. Next time why not just chuck in the SPAM as well…no harm really. On Vegemite Cadbury: I was at Coles a couple of days ago in the city and they sold out of this. Boo. I’m no fan of Vegemite but want to try it.

    Now, Gary. Back to being serious. When are you going to write a cook book, or have you already?

    1. Hi Mabel, the Vegemite chocolate is certainly worth a try even if it’s only a square or too. I find I get a hit of vegemite and then the taste of chocolate takes over.
      I’m flattered that you and a few others reckon I can do a cookbook. I haven’t exclude the idea, various concepts go through my head from time to time 😀

  3. That looks delicious! Is it as “hot” as it appears? I find myself adding crushed red chili pepper flakes and jalapeños to spice up ordinary vegetable dishes.

    1. It was more spicy. At the start when the temperature was quite high the spiciness and heat was quite strong and my lips and tongue tingled quite a bit 😀 I really like adding jalapeño peppers to various foods.

Hi there, leave a comment if you want.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.