El arroz frito cubano (Cuban fried rice)
- Ingredients :
2 to 4 cups of rice (raw)
2 to 3 eggs
Chives
Bean sprouts (frijolitos chinos in Cuba)
A piece of chicken or pork
A piece of ham
Some shrimp
A little fish
Some mixed vegetables (corn, carrot, peas)
Soy sauce
Vegetable (olive) oil
A drizzle of vinegar
Salt
This is a very typical dish, with a little of everything you have on hand. A very complete and tasty dish whose recipe can be as flexible as the different ingredients available.
It is curiously traditional to find this specialty of Creole cuisine, particularly in Chinese restaurants in Cuba. It is surely under Asian influence that the dish would have spread throughout the country.
It's often at home at the end of the week that we look at the leftovers of everything we've recently prepared and, with a few extra aromatic herbs, we make an excellent arroz frito to help out and not throw anything away.
Preparation:
In a rice cooker, put the two cups of rice with a tablespoon of oil, vinegar, salt and the cut vegetables. Cook as you normally would when making white rice.
While the rice cooks, stir the eggs in a bowl and, in a large skillet, fry them like a scramble (without salt). Take them out and set them aside.
Chop the chicken into small pieces that fit into a spoon and season them with soy sauce. Pass the chicken in the same pan as the egg until browned and cooked through, and set aside.
Chop the ham into pieces the same size as the chicken. Pass it in the pan also with a pinch of soy sauce until it is golden brown. Also set it aside.
Brown the shrimp in the pan, with the soy sauce, until cooked. Put them with the other ingredients.
Do the same with the small pieces of fish.
Add a little oil to the bottom of the larger pan and start pouring the cooked rice into the pan over low heat. Add a little chicken, ham, shrimp and egg, making sure the proportions of each ingredient are more or less the same. Stir to incorporate all the ingredients.
Gradually add soy sauce to the rice as you fry it, until it turns light brown (the sauce is stronger than it looks - it's best to measure little by little rather than adding more than you should).
When it looks like the rice is almost well fried, add the bean sprouts (do this last so they stay crispy).
Chop the chives into small pieces and add them after turning off the heat.
And the problem of today's meal is solved. Goodbye, Cuba enthusiasts.
