Wow!
As a market gardener and a chef,
I love growing different types of vegetables.
I love the challenge of seeing
how I can use it on the plates.
As veggie gardeners, we grow what we want to eat, right?
Alright.
I'm going to be making the farm version of chilli fried rice.
So we're going to make a quick paste
with the garlic and the chilli and some coriander roots.
Now, my tip with peeling garlic...
..bash it.
And once you bash it, it'll be really easy.
It'll come out of its skin.
You can do this with the back of your knife.
Break it down.
Coriander roots.
And then we've got our chilli.
These are the very spicy 'Prik Kee Noo Suan',
which means garden-variety chilli in Thai.
And 'Prik Kee Noo' means mouse poo
and they look like mouse droppings.
The smallest ones pack the biggest punch.
So just remember that.
I'm not a fan of de-seeding chillies
because I feel if you're going to use a chilli, use the whole thing.
And I don't mind a bit of spice.
Salt.
Pound that until it's a rough paste.
(LAUGHS)
Looks just like that. Doesn't have to be super smooth.
You want a bit of texture.
Now, the other thing I love in a fried rice is an onion.
So we've got the onions there
and it's really important to do all your prep right now
because the cooking process is super fast.
I've got some of the green garlic here,
which is one of my favourite things to use when I'm cooking.
It's so versatile because we don't harvest the bulb.
If you cut it at the top of the bulb, it will reshoot
and you'll still get the bulbing garlic.
So, my greens element of my chilli fried rice
is going to be these brassicas
which look like Chinese broccoli greens,
but they're actually not.
They're the beginnings of broccolini shoots
and these are just the tips of the plant
and I've cut them at the node where they will side shoot.
The young greens are interchangeable.
You can actually use anything.
One of the most important elements actually of the chilli fried rice
for me is holy basil.
Up north, it can be kept as a perennial.
It can kind of be led on through the winter
as long as you don't get a frost.
In Thai, it's called kaphrao.
It's super, super, super good for you.
I've just been told that since I was a kid by my mother.
So, yeah, that's the line I choose to repeat to my children.
"It's very good for you. Just eat it." (LAUGHS)
Into our hot wok goes the oil, or the fat.
So now that's smoking, break the egg.
And then bathe it.
Bathe the egg with the fat.
So we've got an egg that's lovely and cooked all the way through
with a runny yolk.
Now we're frying off the paste just to cook out the garlic
and the coriander root, a bit of the chilli.
My mum used to tell me whenever I was writing down recipes -
"fry it until it's fragrant".
Now, I used to say, "What does that mean, Mum?"
"Fry until... How long? How long for?"
She'd say, "Well, just you'll know when it's fragrant
"'cause it will smell fragrant."
OK.
And I know exactly what she means now
because I know you fry it until it's fragrant.
OK, so we're going to put in the onions
and then the bottoms of the green garlic.
Once everything in my pan has browned a little bit,
I'm going to add my rice.
Tiny bit of oyster sauce.
A bit of the fish sauce.
And, again, if you've got soy sauce in your cupboard, use that.
I don't know where mine has gone.
So, we'll use what we have.
A sign of good fried rice
is that all the rice grains are not broken up.
And leftover rice is the perfect rice
to make your fried rice with because it's slightly dehydrated
and the grains are not going to be broken up
when you're actually stir-frying it.
Once the rice starts to colour all evenly, then I add my greens.
And that will go in at the same time as my holy basil.
And we just want to kiss the wok with that.
Yes!
Now we can turn that gas off.
Fried rice, it's a one-dish wonder.
This is a comfort dish for me.
Now...
Ah!
And the piece de resistance,
the fried egg,
and I will splash a tiny bit
of fish sauce on the fried egg.
And then my pickled radishes.
This was just radishes and salt as a quick pickle.
Just to tame the spiciness.
Chilli fried rice, pickled radishes,
fried duck eggs.
Keep on gardening,
experimenting in the kitchen using what you've got around you.
Enjoy.