Pineapple Fried Rice [ish]

Welcome to Sara's Wonderful World of Incomplete Recipes! 

(a regular occurrence when I've spent the time in the day post-shower, which I actually took at 10am today, in boy shorts and an old running t-shirt, and have finally decided to make something with more ingredients than oatmeal, but have come to find out I don't have all the ingredients,
and refuse to get dressed to go to the store or change my dinner plans. Run on fragment? Probably.
Oh! But it does usually involve one song you can dance to on repeat for as long as it takes me to make dinner. Cue tonight's song... "Bulletproof"


Last weekend I decided I would make chicken and rice for dinner.    By the way, this blog entry is the longest way possible to tell you what I had for dinner tonight.  This may not be the best way to spend your time, but if you're interested... read on.    I had frozen chicken breast and a delicious new sauce I'd bought the day before.  However, when I bought this rice back in September I had accidentally bought regular rice instead of instant.  Given the amount of time between my body telling me it could be hungry and me becoming an intolerant bad word, the cooking time of the rice resulted in it never being an option for dinner.   It'd been so long since I'd made the rice that I had forgotten why it'd been sitting idle. So, I heated up some water, threw the rice in and then read the directions. What?! 45-50 minutes.  My chicken had already been in for 5 and wouldn't take more than 20 [already an eternity when you're only cooking for your own hungry self].  But, alas, I'd put all the rice in so there it was to stay.  When it was finally finished over an hour later I'd offered it to my roommates and their friends, who were eating sushi, but, there was still a tubberware container left;  I had no idea rice grew exponentially when it was cooked... forget fish and loaves, I'll bet it was rice.  I put it in the back of my mind and the back of my fridge and went on with life. 

A couple of nights ago, with 10 minutes before I had to leave I decided I wanted to make pineapple fried rice. My roommate nicely discouraged me from such an endeavor as it would take too long and I'd be late.  I heeded her wisdom. 

After waking up from a dinnertime nap I decided tonight was the night! I hadn't looked at the recipe yet, but I had rice, eggs, pineapple, and soy sauce. What else could you possibly need? 

Anyone who has made pineapple fried rice is shaking their head at me.  Depending what recipe you picked in your plethora of google results, the ingredient list may have looked something like this: 

• 1 cup pineapple tidbits (fresh is better, but canned works too)
• 4 cups cooked rice, preferably at least 1 day old
• 4 Tbsp oil for stir-frying
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red or green chili (de-seeded if milder rice is desired)
• 1/2 cup roasted unsalted cashews
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 egg, beaten (omit if vegan)
• 1/4 cup currants (or raisins)
• 3 Tbsp. chicken or vegetable stock
• 3 Tbsp. fish sauce (or substitute 3+ 1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce if vegetarian)
• 2 tsp. curry powder
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1/3 cup fresh coriander
• Prawns, Chicken, or tofu (optional) 

http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipesstepbystep/ss/pineapplerice.htm

I regoogled pineapple fried rice adding "simple" in front of it and Everyday Vegetarian Recipes helped me a little bit.  Note: A guy I worked with earlier this year told me that fish sauce is what really makes your pineapple fried rice taste authentic. But, I wasn't going for authenticity. I had two goals: Full tummy. Happy tastebuds. Not necessarily in that order. 

I realize that most of the ingredients above aren't that rare, but I've been terrible about keeping veggie around. I borrowed some of my roommates' onion and mixed together the following ingredients:

• Canned pineapple tidbits. It was a 20 oz can so I just put some in so it looked like there'd be some in most bites... maybe 8 oz like originally instructed?
• All the left over rice
• Enough olive oil to cook the onions and garlic
• Some onions. I cut until my eyes started to water and my sinuses were acting up so that wasn't long
• 3 cloves garlic! Yes! One thing right!
• Chili powder. That's close, right?
• 2 eggs
• Handfuls of raisins. Nom nom nom
• 3 Tbsp. chicken stock [ish]. No really, I had some of this!
• 2 packets of soy sauce leftover from the Chinese restaurant. Thanks Lindsay & Cam!
• Salt & Pepper

*Spoiler alert* Before you go using my recipe let me warn you: I get to call this pineapple fried rice because both of those things were involved. This results in the type of dish that you have to blindfold your picky eaters for.  It only tastes a little like what you might have in a restaurant, but it is delicious.

Step 1. Unbury the wok.

My parents let me take one of the woks with me when I moved to NYC. Every time I find an excuse to cook with it I get excited, but you could do this in a large frying pan.

Step 2. Heat the oil in the wok/pan.  Add the garlic, onions and chili powder.  And maybe even some Cumin powder since it's the right color, but you can't find enough uses for it.
Step 3. Beat the eggs separately why that's cooking. Add the egg, but don't let it get omlet-y before adding the rice and mixing.  Stir 'til it's mixed.
Step 4. Add the chicken broth and soy sauce. Add pineapple and raisins.
Step 5. Nom nom nom... nom nom nom... nom nom...
Step 6. Blog.