Fried Rice

Segun is around from Saudi Arabia. Yay! I haven't seen him in ages. Well since Simeon's wedding in January 2008. We have a lot to catch up on. Since the wedding, he got promoted, got married and now expecting a baby. Wow!

We have planned to meet up on Wednesday after work. As he has been in Saudi for a while I thought he would love to eat traditional Nigerian dish like egusi (melon seed) soup, but to my surprise he wanted fried rice.

Fried rice is very popular in West Africa but traditionally not an African dish. It originated from China and is a popular component of other forms of Asian cuisine. It is made from rice fried in a wok, typically with additional ingredients left over from other dishes. Every country that has adopted the fried rice recipe has added their flavour to it. So I here by present Fried rice, Nigerian style.

Ingredients
• Long grain rice (2.5 cups)
• 1/2 of green and red peppers

• 2 Carrots

• Half of an Onion

• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed

• half a cup of Sweet Corn

• half a cup of Green Peas

• 1 cup of Shrimps (peeled and washed)

• 1 Bonnet pepper (de-seed if you don't want it too spicy)

• 4 cups Chicken stock

• Sunflower Oil - 4 table spoons

Seasoning

• Soy sauce

• Thyme

• Curry powder

• Salt

• Knorr Chicken Cubes

Wash the rice and soak in very hot water for about 10 minutes. Drain the water from the rice and add the chicken stock just to cover the rice in a sauce pan. Cook the rice with the chicken stock until its soft and dry, not soggy.

To make the sauce chop the carrots, sweet peppers, bonnet peppers and onions. In a sauce pan heat up the oil and add the onions and garlic. Fry for about 30 seconds. Add the shrimps and fry for another 30 seconds. Then add the sweet corn, sweet peppers, green peas and bonnet peppers (optional). Add thyme, curry powder, Knorr cubes and salt to taste. Cook for about 10 minutes. Add the carrots when you are done cooking it. This is to retain the crunchiness of the carrots. (My dear friend Koye has a passion for crunchy carrots, I discovered this new trick while cooking for him one day).

In a wok add a some sauce and rice and a tea spoon of Soy sauce. Fry for about 4 minutes using a wooden spoon. Just add enough sauce to fry the rice in. We don't want it to be soggy. I like to fry mine until I feel its about to burn, when its very dry. Continue this until you have cooked all the rice.

If you have left over sauce, you can serve this with the rice for those who would like more. Serve the fried rice with some garden salad and grilled chicken.