Ingredients

• 1 cup white or brown rice
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 3 eggs
• 4 TBS garlic
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1 stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/2 white onion diced (~1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup minced carrots
• 1/2 cup zucchini diced
• 1 bunch thinly sliced green onions (reserve 1 TBS of the sliced greens for garnish)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (or tamari for SooN COOKING Celiac)
• 2 TBS rice vinegar
• 2 TBS sesame oil
• 1/2 pound boneless chicken breast cut into 1-inch cubes (or tofu for SooN COOKNG VEGETARIAN)
• 1/4 cup white cooking wine or sake
• 1 TBS sesame seed
• 10 turns salt (~1/4 tsp)
• 10 turns pepper (~1/4 tsp)

New to SooN Cooking?

No problem! Some quick background on the concept: I love to cook and realized that I often had to adjust my meal plan to accomodate for for my friends and family with dietary requirements when they joined me for a meal.  More often than not, I didn’t know how to modify my recipe to address their dietary needs which launched me into some deep research and left me with a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt that I was preparing the recipe the right way for my guest.  A concept that I now call Meal Planning FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). To combat Meal Planning FUD each of my recipes has eight variations which covers everything from vegetarian to Kosher to gluten-free so that you can cut the Meal Planning FUD out of your life and feel comfortable serving the recipe to a variety of guests.

Check out the SooN Cooking About page for the complete details.

SooN COOKING Express

The SooN COOKING ORIGINAL recipe takes me about an hour to make.  30 minutes of that is cooking the rice.  To save time here you could do any of the following:

• Use a rice cooker and cook the rice earlier while you are running errands, chauffeuring your kids around or at work.
• Use precooked rice either from a pouch or frozen
• Use minute rice − in full transparency, this was what I used in the original fried rice because Uncle Ben’s Instant Rice was such a staple in the Herzog household that I actually don’t think we even bought regular raw rice.

The next time investment in this recipe comes from prepping all the remaining ingredients.  To save time here you could:

• Purchase pre-chopped vegetables
• Purchase pre-cut chicken (usually marked “Stir-Fry” in the grocery store
• Use packaged garlic and ginger.

Once you have the cooked rice and the other ingredients prepped, your directions look like this:

1. Blend the garlic and butter in the Cuisinart
2. Move mixture to prep bowl and set aside.
3. Crack the eggs into a prep bowl and scramble them well.
4. Season the chicken with salt and pepper before moving to a prep bowl.  (Don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly and move the cutting board to the sink/dishwasher to avoid foodborne illness.)
5. On high heat, melt 2 TBS of the garlic-butter in the frying pan.
6. Add 1 tsp ginger and mix in
7. Sauté the chicken until thoroughly cooked. Chicken should be nicely browned. This will take about 15-20 minutes.
8. Place cooked chicken in the mixing bowl.
9. Add the wine/sake and deglaze the pan.
10. Add 2 TBS garlic-butter to the wine/sake mixture then add 1 tsp ginger and sauté until butter has melted
11. Add the chopped carrots, zucchini and onion.
12. Sauté vegetables 1 minute.
13. Turn heat down to medium.
14. Add the cooked rice, mixing it evenly with the vegetables.
15. Make a well in the middle of the rice then add 2 TBS garlic-butter and let melt.
16. Try to evenly coat the rice mixture with butter. Scraping up the fried bits up from the pan.
17. Pour the soy sauce evenly on the rice mixture.
18. Add the chicken and green onions then blend everything together spreading the rice evenly throughout the pan similar to how you would spread icing on a cake.
19. Make another well and add 1 TBS garlic butter
20. Once the butter has melted, add the eggs and scramble them.
21. Mix everything evenly then let the bottom layer fry for 2 minutes.
22. Mix everything up and then spread out evenly in the pan again.
23. Let the bottom layer fry for 2 minutes.
24. Your rice is done!  Remove from heat and garnish with sesame seeds and green onion.

SooN COOKING Vegetarian

Substitute tofu for the chicken and follow the steps in either The SooN COOKING ORIGINAL or The SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipes.

Not familiar with a Vegetarian diet? Learn more here.

SooN COOKING Kosher

Make sure to use Kosher certified products when serving this dish to someone who keeps Kosher. The SooN COOKING ORIGINAL and the SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipes are meat. If you would like to serve this dish with something dairy, omit the chicken or follow the SooN COOKING VEGETARIAN recipe.

Not familiar with a Kosher diet? Learn more here.

SooN COOKING Halal

Make sure to use Halal certified products when serving this dish to someone who follows a Halal diet. Once you have done this, follow the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL, the SooN COOKING EXPRESS or the SooN COOKING VEGETARIAN recipe.

Not familiar with a Halal diet? Learn more here.

SooN COOKING Celiac

You would need to substitute a gluten-free soy-sauce like tamari then follow the SooN COOKING ORIGINAL or the SooN COOKING EXPRESS recipe in order to serve this to someone who has Celiac or is gluten free.

Not familiar with a Celiac diet? Learn more here.

SooN COOKING for One

This recipe is a great option if you have leftover rice from another meal.  For a single serving I reccomend pulling together the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup cooked rice
• 1 egg
• 1 TBS garlic
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• a slice of a white onion the width of your index finger; diced
• 3 baby carrots minced
• a slice of a zucchini the width of 3 fingers; diced
• 1 thinly sliced green onion
• 3-5 TBS soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1/4-1/2 a chicken breast cut into 1-inch cubes
• sesame seeds, salt and pepper to taste

Then follow the directions in the SooN COOKING Original recipe.

SooN COOKING for Kids

This recipe can be a hit or miss with my kids.  I honestly think it depends on their mood.  As a result, I started doubling the amount of chicken when I make this dish.  For example, I cook 1 pound of chicken instead of the 1/2 pound of chicken that the recipe calls for.  I then set aside HALF the cooked chicken.  When we sit down for dinner, I offer our kids a serving of fried rice. Like I said, sometimes they will clean their plate.  Other times they will complain it is “spicy” (which it most certainly is not). If it is a spicy day AND I have already encouraged them to try eating it anyways.  I will switch out their plates for some of the chicken reserve and any fruit we have on hand.  Bananas, oranges and strawberries are usually what we have in stock so I would pick one of those. Fingers crossed your kids just go for the regular recipe!