Garlic-Chive-Shrimp-fried Rice with Garlic Chips

One of the best things about fried rice is that it can be made with just about anything and can be seasoned with an almost infinite combination of flavours. It’s one of those dishes that I like to make when I’m really not in the mood to think too much and I happen to have some left over rice–a night like tonight.

I addition to some rice from last night, I also had some slow cooked eggs and cooked shrimp sitting in the fridge so that’s how it got started. I’ve also been really digging the aroma of almost burnt garlic (a.k.a. garlic chips), so I wanted to add some of that flavor. To offset the garlic, shrimp and fish sauce I seasoned it with sansho powder which has a unique citrusy flavour and kaffir lime leaves which had my happy tastebuds trying to figure out if it tasted more Japanese or Thai.

If you don’t have slow cooked eggs sitting around you could take the more traditional route of scrambling eggs, or you can pan fry the eggs sunny side up and serve them on top of the rice. For salt you can use soy sauce, or salt instead of fish sauce, and for spices I like using anything from kimchi juice to curry to flavor my fried rice.

Ingredients
1 Tbs oil 4 cloves garlic sliced thin 6 medium shrimp cut into pieces 2 C of cooked rice 1/2 C chopped garlic chives (the thin flat kind a.k.a. Nira) 1 kaffir lime leaf sliced very thin 1/4 tsp sansho powder (Sichuan pepper) dash of white pepper 1 Tbs fish sauce 1 Tbs mirin 2 slow cooked eggs

Preparation
Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium high heat and add the garlic. Fry the garlic slices until golden brown then transfer to a paper towel lined plate.

Fry the shrimp in the garlic flavoured oil until it’s barely cooked (just turns pink) then transfer to a plate.

Make sure there’s still enough oil left in the pan, then add the cooked rice and fry using a pressing motion (not a cutting motion) with a spatula to break up any clumps. Add the garlic chives, lime leaves, sansho, and pepper and continue to stir-fry until the herbs are fragrant.

Add the shrimp back in and drizzle the fish sauce and mirin evenly over the rice and stir until the liquid has completely evaporated.

To plate the rice, press some rice into a ramekin or shallow bowl and invert onto a plate. Make an indentation in the middle of the rice with a spoon and break a slow cooked egg into it. Top with the garlic chips and serve.