Fried Garlic Rice & Oyster Sauce Baby Pak Choy

have you tried a wonderful plate of fried garlic rice before? how the taste is infused right into the depths of the rice and every grain is coated with the aroma of garlic? ooooooh i love it so much. and i really wanted to replicate it, which is why i came up with my own version of fried garlic rice! i did every possible thing i could to try to infuse each grain of rice with the taste of garlic. well, i have to say that i am quite happy with the result! :D it was a whole lot of trial and error, and if you have any better way of doing it, feel free to suggest it to me :D i used A LOT of garlic, maybe that's why haha.

Garlic Fried Rice

Serves 6-8

3 cups of japanese rice

1 bulb of garlic

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp dark soy sauce

5 eggs

chicken stock

4 chicken breasts

1. Wash the rice and cook it in diluted chicken stock with 4 cloves of garlic buried in it. (I was hoping that this would infuse the flavour of the garlic into the rice but apparently it was not very successful so you might skip this step if you want. Just cook the rice as you would normally)

2. Stir-fry the chicken breasts until it is completely cooked, then cool and shred it into pieces/cut it into chunks. Set aside.

3. Crack the eggs into a bowl, and add them to a blender/food mixer, together with the remaining garlic cloves. Blend/pulse the garlic cloves into tiny pieces together with the egg.

4. When the rice is cooked, remove it from the cooker and stir it a little to dry it. Separate the rice into three portions.

5. Pour the sesame oil into a deep wok and fry the chicken pieces. Add the first portion of rice to the wok, with some of the egg-garlic mixture and one tbsp of dark sauce. Stir until the rice is fully coated. Repeat with the other portions of rice.

6. Serve :D

Oyster Sauce Baby Pak Choy

Serves 4

500g baby pak choy, halved

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2.5cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and grated

2 garlic cloves, chopped

3 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp rice wine

pinch of sugar

120ml chicken stock

2 tsp corn flour

1. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add the pak choy and blanch for 1 minute. Drain and cool in cold water to preserve their colour.

2. Heat the oil in a wok, add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry for 30 seconds. add the pak choy and stir-fry for 1 minute.

3. Mix together the oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, chicken stock and cornflour until smooth. Pour into the wok and stir until the sauce has thickened and coats the pak choy. Transfer to a serving plate and serve at once.