3. Ripple Recipe: Gobbler Fried Rice

Crispy-fried jasmine rice sauteed with roasted turkey, chopped bacon, shredded carrots, and sugar snap peas. Finished with a crispy fried egg on top, green onion, and pomegranate arils.

INGREDIENTS:

PREPARATION METHOD:

1. Cook rice according to the package instructions. Then evenly spread freshly made rice on a baking sheet to cool completely. Might take ~20-30 minutes, faster if you put it in your fridge or freezer.
   – I like to cook my rice in a rice cooker because it’s much easier. Set it, forget it, and voilà – perfect rice every time.
2. You never want to make fried rice with hot, freshly made rice because the rice will get soggy or break. Cool the rice first and let it dry out a tiny bit, or use day-old rice from another meal.
   – You can cook this rice the day before, if you want, and let it cool in the fridge.
   – Heck, you don’t have to use rice if you want to get weird with it. Other grains are good too – quinoa, bulgur wheat, amaranth, buckwheat… choose your own adventure.
3. In a skillet or wok on RIPPING HOT heat, cook your bacon for 1-2 minutes to render out the fat. Then add shredded carrots and sliced sugar snap peas. Saute vegetables for 2-4 minutes until they’ve softened a bit, maybe charred a little, but still have that toothsome bite (aka “al dente”).
   – You want your skillet/wok SO HOT, it’s practically smoking.
   – True fact: Cutting things on a bias (aka on an angle) makes it look fancier but doesn’t require additional effort.
4. Fold the cooked rice to the skillet/wok and cook for ~5 minutes to heat up rice and perhaps let it toast a little bit. Give it a good stir about once every 1-2 minutes.
   – If you want your rice to crisp a bit, press the rice gently into the skillet/wok to sear.
5. Remove fried rice from heat and cover to keep hot. Time to make the crispy fried eggs.
6. In a clean skillet on high-medium heat, heat up vegetable oil. You’ll know the oil is the right temperature when you see convection waves in the oil. Crack open your eggs into the hot oil. The eggs should have that “Hollywood sizzle” when it hits the oil.
   – Yeah, I know it seems like a lot of oil, but we’re frying eggs Thai style. We’re not going O.G. French.
   – I want the oil to fry up egg whites’ bottoms and edges to a golden brown crisp.
7. Let the eggs cook until the whites have set, the edges and bottom of the egg whites are crispy, golden brown, and a bit blistered – 2-4 minutes depending on your stove sitch.
   – DON’T FUTZ WITH THE EGG WHILE IT’S COOKING. DON’T FREAKING TOUCH IT OR POKE IT WITH YOUR SPATULA. Just watch it do its Thai-fried egg thing – floating and frying in the hot oil.
8. While the eggs are frying, divvy your fried rice into bowls. Once the eggs are done, each bowl of rice with a crispy-fried egg. Make it rain pomegranate seeds and sliced green onion to finish each rice bowl. Eat it while it’s hawt.