When I was growing up, everytime we had leftover rice, my mother would fry it for breakfast in the morning. Hers was simple – just fried with shallots and egg plus salt and Ve Tsin according to taste but it was a welcome change from the usual bread and stuff.
I did not know of any other way by which people would fry rice until much later when a friend fried hers with ikan bilis (dried anchovies) and chili pounded together with belacan (dried fermented prawn paste) and I loved it! After sampling hers, I tried doing the same at home and it was a success. Everybody liked it too.
Over the years too, I have been eating the fried rice from the Chinese chu-char (cook-fry) places and restaurants and most of the time, they would have tiny bits of char siew (barbecued pork) and those frozen vegetables – carrots, peas and sweet corn…and I’ve tried some of the fried rice at a few Malay stalls around town as well. Some aren’t too bad but frankly, I think I prefer my own.
Of course, when it comes to frying rice, there is no fixed recipe – it is up to you to do it whichever way you want. A couple of weeks ago, I fried it with some lap cheong (Chinese sausages)…
…and even with char siew before…
…and the other morning, I used luncheon meat instead…
My missus would usually fry it kampung-style with ikan bilis and I would do the same as well sometimes…
…or I would be a bit more adventurous and use belacan instead…
…or cincaluk (fermented shrimps) perhaps…
How do you usually fry yours?
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 