Even the most eager of home cooks come to a point in their week when they get a bit lazy, and because I’m a night eater (ooh that should be my Super Villain name!) my laziness always comes in the form of not entirely having fresh ingredients at the end of the week, and not wanting to rush to the shops to buy last minute ingredients in the final 5 minutes before they close.
Enter this Easy Tom Yum Fried Rice, made entirely out of ingredients that I keep stocked at home! You’ll notice that my frozen prawns and veg is cooked straight from the freezer – no thawing time! And it works, too, because the prawns are small and the veg is bite-sized. If you have larger pieces of meat that are frozen, they may require a little bit of thawing, unless they were cut before freezing, in which case, substitute away!
But the whole point of this recipe is that it’s more of a guideline: feel free to mix and match ingredients that you might keep on hand, and create effortless deliciousness!
- 1.5 cups medium grain rice or 3 cups cooked rice
- 1 medium onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 80g (3 tbsp) Tom Yum Paste
- 10g (1tsp) Tamarind Paste
- 300g frozen prawns (or fresh if you have it on hand)
- 1.5 cups frozen mixed vegetables
- 2 eggs
- Fish sauce, to taste
- Lime to serve, if desired
- If the rice has not been cooked, cook it now. It should take about 20 minutes in a rice cooker.
- While the rice is cooking, chop the onion and garlic, and sauté in a large pan/wok over medium heat until the onions start to turn translucent.
- Add the frozen prawns and cover with the lid for about a minute.
- Then add the frozen vegetables, give it a good stir, and cover for another minute.
- In a separate bowl, beat the two eggs.
- Lift the lid off the pan and stir again, making sure that the frozen prawn and vegetables have mostly thawed. If not, cover the pan and leave for another minute or so on medium.
- Add the Tom Yum paste and tamarind paste into the pan, and fry off the prawns and veg till fragrant.
- Push the prawns and veg to the sides of the pan, making a space in the centre. Turn the heat up to high, and pour in the eggs. Leave to set for about a minute, and then break it up into large chunks.
- Add the rice into the pan and mix with a wooden spoon, making sure that every grain is coated with the sauce.
- Season to taste with fish sauce.
- Serve with wedges of lime, if desired.
- This is an extremely flexible recipe, and is designed to help you out on a weekday night, not give you more stress! If you have other forms of meat in your fridge/freezer that you'd like to use up, feel free to substitute the prawns. The only thing to note is that larger pieces of meat would take more time to cook, so cut it into bite sized pieces if possible, or extend the cooking time.
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