I adore huevos rancheros.

And until breakfast yesterday, I’d never bothered to make them at home.

I’m not sure why except for whatever reason I never had leftover refried beans in the refrigerator at the same time as eggs and freshly made salsa at a time that coincided with a desire to eat huevos rancheros.

Or, perhaps, until yesterday, I had simply been too lazy to bother making them myself since I can go downtown and get a really nice version of the dish made for me at the cosy little locavore haven, Casa Nueva.

I’ll cop to being lazy, so maybe that should just be the answer.

But yesterday, I wanted huevos and couldn’t just haul off and wander downtown because I was waiting for the dishwasher repair guy, so I looked in the fridge and lo and behold! There were refrieds, made the night before from Rancho Gordo’s Eye of the Goat beans, there was Calico Salsa made freshly the night before from heirloom tomatoes we grew in our very own garden, there were fresh local eggs, there was smoked goat cheddar from Integration Acres, and some whole wheat tortillas left over from burritos from the week before.

So, it only made sense to get in front of the stove and make myself a plate of huevos.

For the initiated, huevos rancheros is a dish from the cowboy days, born along the border of Mexico and the American Southwest, and today you can find it in restaurants, truck stops, diners and dives all through that area, all with slight regional variations, especially when it comes to what kind of salsa is featured with the dish. But the basic idea for “eggs, ranch-style” is always the same–one or two corn tortillas are layered with some warm refried beans and cheese, then the plate is put under the broiler to heat it all up nicely and melt the cheese. Two over-easy fried eggs are laid gently atop this bed of leguminous love, a bit of salsa is poured over, cheese is sprinkled again and then under the broiler the plate is put to melt the cheese and warm the salsa.

Then, out it comes to the diner who presumably tucks in gleefully, drinking copious amounts of black coffee which tastes mighty fine alongside the plate of eggs, beans and salsa.

Turns out, if you have the ingredients already prepped up and on hand, making huevos rancheros is a simple matter of warming some stuff up, frying a couple of eggs and melting some cheese, which really, truly, anyone can do in the morning, even if one hasn’t had coffee.

I’d say the trickiest part is frying the eggs. I’m not sure I can really teach someone how to cook over-easy fried eggs online, but I can at least describe the process. But, truly, it just takes practice to get the hang of it. I got good at it working breakfast shift when I was in culinary school. Breakfast shift in a diner or another quick-serve establishment will really teach a person how to cook eggs.

But here’s basically how to go about frying some over-easy eggs–which would be eggs that are fried until the bottom of the egg white is set, then are gently flipped over to set the white on the top. The yolk is only partially set–it is mostly just thickened slightly to a rich, smooth golden liquid. (Over hard eggs are cooked until the yolks are completely set and firm, but not rubbery.)

First, pick a good pan. I use a non-stick pan, but a good, well-seasoned cast iron pan is just as good, if not better. Heat it over medium heat and put a little bit of whatever fat you want to use in it: olive oil is good, butter is better and bacon drippings are the best. THE best. But, if you are watching your weight or are a vegetarian, by all means, use either olive oil or butter. When the oil is dripping, crack your eggs carefully by opening the shell less than an inch from the pan. (Using the freshest eggs possible will not only result in the tastiest eggs but also the most compact egg whites–older egg whites run a lot and spread out over the pan more. Fresher eggs are less likely to result in broken yolks as well.)

Cook the eggs until the whites are set–opaque white–with maybe a little bit of browning on the edges, and just a clear sheen of uncooked white on top. Then, using a thin but sturdy spatula, slide it under an egg, and without lifting the egg clear out of the pan, just gently roll the egg over so that the yolk goes down on the hot surface of the pan, hopefully without breaking the yolk. (The first few times you do this, you’re likely to break the yolk. The egg will still taste good though, so don’t despair and just keep cooking eggs until you get them right.) The closer to the pan you keep the spatula and the egg, the less likely you are to actually break the yolk, and the more gently you roll the egg, the better.

If you are cooking one egg at a time and you have a quick wrist and a strong intestinal fortitude, not to mention the courage of your convictions, you can flip the egg in the air. BUT, from personal experience, I can tell you that it takes about a dozen and a half eggs destroyed to get this advanced technique right and it never works if you’re cooking two eggs or more in the same pan.

Anyway, once you turn the egg over, let it cook for about thirty seconds or so more, just until the white on the bottom is set, and voila! It’s done!

So, that’s how you fry over easy eggs.

The recipe below will teach you what to do with them once you have them. Give making huevos rancheros a try–your taste buds will thank you.

Huevos Rancheros
Ingredients:

(For one serving)

2 fresh corn tortillas
1 cup refried beans
2 tablespoons shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon Chile Colorado Sauce or salsa (optional)
2 cooked over easy eggs, fresh from the pan
2 more tablespoons shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
Fresh salsa to taste
cilantro for garnish (optional)

Method:

Put your two corn tortillas on a serving plate. Spread the beans evenly over them and sprinkle with the cheese. Run under a broiler or microwave until heated through and the cheese is melted. Spread the Chile Colorado or salsa over the beans, then put the eggs on top of that, and sprinkle with the second bit of cheese.

Run under the broiler or microwave for a few seconds, just until the cheese melts and everything is bubbly and nice.

Serve with fresh salsa on the side and sprinkle with minced cilantro. (If you had no fresh corn tortillas, then skip them and spread the beans right on the plate, then serve with a nice freshly steamed whole wheat tortilla for scooping up cheesy-eggy-beany goodness.)

Well, if you live at my house and you were blessed with a turkey too big for the number of guests at your Thanksgiving dinner, you strip what extra meat you want from the bird, pop the rest in a pot, make stock and then…make jambalaya. (I grew up in a household where we used turkey leavings to make turkey rice soup on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Must be part of why I make jambalaya–because turkey and rice are imprinted as perfect partners in my brain…..)

Now, I’ve written about jambalaya before, and while the recipe I presented previously is a perfectly good rendition of the dish–this one is spectacular. There are several notable differences between this jambalaya recipe and my previous one, and they are as follows:

1. This recipe uses a freshly made stock from a turkey carcass, a ham bone and some leftover smoked barbecue rib bones from Kiser’s BBQ Shack here in town, instead of a simple chicken stock. This results in a richer, more fully-flavored jambalaya.

2. Instead of finely dicing the aromatics and vegetables, I pureed them, which is something hardly anyone I know of does. But I have found that the jambalaya made this way is more deeply flavored, in large part because the tiny pieces of vegetables cling to each piece of rice and turn each grain into a little flavor bomb that explodes on your tongue. Good stuff, right there.

3. I used way more herbs and spices, including Spanish smoked paprika (pimenton), cayenne pepper, Aleppo pepper and tarragon, in this version, which added another several layer of flavor and aroma to this recipe.

So, first of all, let’s talk about the turkey stock.

I’m not going to go into a full description of how to make stock here, because I already wrote that post a while back–like about four years ago. So, for a long, drawn out and involved treatise on the general method of making stock (in four part harmony with full orchestration), go here.

Now that you’ve read the background information, let’s go back to talking about turkey leftovers and turkey stock.

First, pick off all the meat you want to use, and peel off most of the skin. Leave some of the skin on, though, because that nice roasty color and flavor that is in the skin will get into your stock and make it really, really tasty. Trust me on this. You want all the browned meat flavor you can get in your stock.

Stock made this way, from a carcass of a roasted bird, is technically called “fond brun” in French kitchens–brown stock. It gets its color from the roasted bones it is made out of. And–you can turn any stock you want to make brown even if you are only using uncooked bones–to do that, just roast those bones with some carrots, onions and celery in a hot oven until they brown and smell meaty and good. Then continue onward and make your stock as written. I personally think it is a waste to make beef stock without browning the bones at least a little, but that is another post for another time.

Okay, back to making the turkey stock. After you peel off as much of the skin as you want to, and remove as much visible fat as you would like, crack the carcass apart so it will fit more nicely into the stockpot. Whole turkey skeletons don’t usually fit into stockpots well, so I usually hack off the legs and thighs, twist off the wings and if I have a cleaver that will go through the backbone and breastbone, hack through the main body. Then, the pieces go into the stockpot without any argument. (Who argues with a woman with a cleaver, anyway?)

Into the pot also goes the usual whole carrots, celery and onions (if, like some people, you put these vegetables in the bottom of your roasting pan to make the drippings taste nice, save those suckers and use them in your stock!) and in my case, a couple of garlic cloves. Herbs go in as well–fresh or dried thyme, rosemary, sage, bay leaves and tarragon, as well as some spices: a dash of cayenne, a teaspoon or so of Spanish smoked paprika, and a tablespoon of Aleppo pepper. In addition to all of this, when I know I am making jambalaya with my stock, in goes a whole chile pepper or two–in this case a couple of green serranos.

Then, I usually add what drippings I have saved from the bottom of the pan–because I don’t usually use all of them for the gravy–as well as any leftover gravy that hasn’t been eaten. If you didn’t simmer all of the goodness out of the turkey neck on Thanksgiving day, toss that in, too. (Do you get the idea that I save everything? There’s a good reason for this–I do.) Then, a ham bone or ham hock, and if you happen to have some smoked pork ribs, those can go in, too. But, if not, the ham bone or hock will do just fine.

Why do I put pork into my turkey stock?

I have found over the years, that I prefer the flavor of a mixed pork and poultry stock better than I like just plain poultry stocks. I got the taste for such stocks from eating lots of really good Chinese soups and sauces made with such mixed stocks. There is something fuller and more delightful about a mixed pork and chicken or turkey stock, than one made with the bird bones alone that I find adds a mysterious, amazing touch to any dish cooked with the stock.

That said, if you don’t eat piggies for whatever reason, then, leave off with the pork bones and don’t worry over it. It will all turn out okay.

Then, the bones, meat, vegetables and other stock stuff is all covered with cold water to which about a cup of sherry and a cup of dry red wine are added. Why both? Why not? Both sherry and wine really make the stock taste good, so if you have them on hand, go for it!

Now-most of the time, you add some salt to the stockpot just before you start simmering it–but let me caution you–if you brined your bird, don’t even go there. Don’t ever add salt to the stock until it is done and you have tasted it. You run the risk of making your stock too salty and that is just a hideous crime and a shame because you waste all your nice stock and all the effort you put into making it.

Then, you bring your pot to a simmer, turn the heat down and simmer it for as long as you can stand it. With a turkey stock made from a roasted carcass with plenty of meat left on it and some good smoked pork bones, you can make a deep, dark stock in about three to five hours of simmering. But, if you want, you can always simmer it longer.

After your stock has cooked as long as you want it, follow the general stock making instructions here to remove the remaining meat from the bones, and strain the stock.

For this jambalaya, you will need six cups (1 1/2 quarts) of stock. I ended up making about five quarts of stock, which is great, because I could freeze what I wasn’t going to use now for later soup-making adventures. I also ended up picking off an extra quart of meat which I also packed up (with some broth to keep it happy and moist) and popped in the freezer, with the intention of some mole poblano enchiladas appearing on my table later this winter. This extra quart of meat came after the quart and a half of shredded chunks and bits of turkey I stripped from the bones for the jambalaya. So, from this harvest from one bird, you can guess that it was way bigger than necessary….but then, really, what is necessary? It isn’t like any of it is going to waste….

After you have picked your meat and strained your stock, you are left with bones and skin. Give the skin to your pets, but not the bones. That said, I have found that chucking the bones into the woods makes the crows, raccoons and possums very happy, but some folks might frown on that, so you’d best just throw them away.

Now that we’ve gone over all of that, we can start making the jambalaya!

This recipe makes enough to feed six to twelve people. I say six to twelve, because it depends on the people. If you have folks who don’t eat a lot, like elderly grandmothers and little toddlers, then you can definitely stretch the jambalaya out to feed more of them. If you only have big burly lumberjack sorts, you might have to stop at six. If you have normal folks who just really like jambalaya, this recipe will probably serve eight.

This said, please note that in order to feed more people with a pot of jambalaya, you can always add more meat. More of the same, or more of different sorts of meat–for example, this recipe has the leftover dark and white meat from a turkey, plus about a half pound of really good local ham and a pound of local andouille sausage. (Okay, the truth is this–you can make this jambalaya with just turkey meat. But, see, I think that is sad. That turkey might just be lonely in that pot all by himself. So, please, toss in at least a bit of ham and sausage to you, know, just keep that bird company.)

But, if you have other stuff around, like, oh, a venison roast, preferably with a bone in it, toss that in the stockpot, then shred the meat off of it. Or, add some seafood (though you have to understand that I will be eternally jealous of you, as I have developed an allergy to shellfish), or some chicken, or some duck–you get the picture.

You can also add more rice and stock to the recipe. That’s usually cheaper than adding meat, but leftovers are only ennobled by being chucked into the jambalaya pot and leftovers are cheap, being as they are left over from a meal already paid for and eaten. But still, if you want to add more rice and stock–the ratio you must remember is 2:1–two parts stock to one part long grain (I use jasmine, because that is what lives in my pantry) rice. Don’t get that backwards, please. It will make a scorched, stinky mess and you might get mad at me. So, I reiterate: the ratio is 2:1 stock to rice.

Okay, now we are ready to make jambalaya!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

After Thanksgiving Turkey Jambalaya
Ingredients:

1 really large red bell pepper, seeded, with the stalk removed, and cut into chunks
1 really large yellow onion, peeled and cut into chunks
3 big stalks of celery, strings removed and cut into chunks
2-5 serrano chiles, stalks removed, and seeded if you like
1 head of garlic, peeled (that is head, not clove. One clove is that one piece of garlic you take out of the head of garlic–I want you to use the whole darned head here.)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper flakes
1/2 tablespoon Spanish smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced (or 1 teaspoon dried, powdered)
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, or 2 teaspoons dried
3 fresh sage leaves, minced (or 1/2 teaspoon dried, rubbed sage)
1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, minced–or 2 teaspoons dried
1 pound andouille or other smoked sausage, cut in half longways, then into diagonal slices
1/2 pound ham, diced
3 cups jasmine or other long grained rice
6 cups strained (and salted to taste) turkey stock
2 pounds (about a quart and a half) shredded dark and light meat turkey, preferably that has been simmered in the stockpot (it makes it more moist to use it after you have made the stock)
salt to taste
minced fresh parsley and scallion tops for garnish

Method:

In a food processor, puree the pepper, onion, celery, chiles and garlic. You will end up with a frothy, very liquidy, fragrant red mixture. Good. That’s what you want it to look like.

Heat your olive oil over high flame in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed stock-pot–I use a ten quart pot for making jambalaya–and when it shimmers, add the puree. It will sputter, spray and make all sorts of noises, but dive in bravely and stir, stir, stir, the whole time it cooks. Turn down the heat to medium and cook, stirring. You will notice that there is a lot of steam and bubbling–that is what you want. The water is simmering right out of your vegetable mixture. When the mixture has reduced by about half, you will notice it has gotten thicker, but is still sort of juicy. At this point in the cooking is when you add the herbs and spices.

Continue cooking until it mostly stops sputtering and whispering at you, and stir carefully. The mixture will be much thicker and you will note that it has started taking on a bit of a darker, more golden-brownish tinge. That’s because most of the water is gone and everything is starting to brown a bit.

At the point where your spoon leaves a definite trail that shows the bottom of the pot, (see photo above) and when that trail does not instantly disappear–add the sausage and ham. After it browns lightly for a minute or two, add the rice, all at once. Then, you stir it completely to coat each grain of rice with the oil and vegetable mixture. You keep cooking, and stirring until the rice has a shiny, somewhat translucent tinge to it and you can smell a nutty fragrance coming from it.

That’s when the stock gets poured in all at once. Stir to make sure that the rice is all covered and mixed into the stock, bring the heat up onto high again, and bring it to a boil. Then, clap a lid on the pot, and turn the heat down to low and leave the pot alone. No, really, I mean it.

Now you start timing it–sort of. Here’s where the recipe gets a little variable, because I don’t know how fresh your rice is, nor how low your stove goes. The rice will cook in between 10 for very fresh rice with an electric stove that doesn’t cool down very fast to 20-25 minutes for a gas stove and average rice. Most of the time for me, the jambalaya cooks in about 20 minutes or so. So, what you do, is simmer the pot for ten minutes. Check the rice at that time–most of the time, what you will see is half-cooked rice just covered with about an inch or so of rapidly disappearing stock. If that is the case, spread your turkey over the top and clap the lid over the top and let it cook, under supervision (in other words, check on it now and again) for another ten minutes. At that point your stock should be absorbed, your turkey should be steamed and lovely and all should be tasty. If the rice is still a little underdone, sprinkle in about 1/4-1/2 cup more stock or water over the rice, stir it well and close the lid and let it cook another five minutes. After that, it will be done.

If, when you check the rice after the first ten minutes, it is tender and done, then stir in your turkey and continue cooking for about five more minutes, stirring constantly to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pot, so as to heat up the turkey nicely.

At this point, taste for salt and correct the seasoning. Sprinkle with the parsley and scallion tops and serve with a smile.

Bruschetta is a lovely way to use up leftovers. Consisting of sliced bread rubbed with garlic and brushed with olive oil then topped with any number of toppings and grilled or toasted, bruschetta is usually served as an appetizer or snack, but I think it can make a nice light lunch, especially if served beside a crisp green salad.

A perfect way to use up day old bread, bruschetta is an already frugal dish; but when you use leftovers as toppings, it is doubly frugal.

What sort of leftovers do I have in mind?

Well, I had made a batch of Melanzane con Noci–a Sicilian pasta sauce made with roasted eggplant, garlic and toasted walnuts which is traditionally served over spaghetti–but had more sauce than two people could eat. While I could have simply frozen the leftover sauce, I wanted to figure out another way to use this delectable puree.

In putting together the bruschetta, which I made for Brittney and I for lunch, I decided to forgo rubbing the bread with garlic as the sauce is already quite sufficiently imbued with garlic; instead, I simply brushed 1/2 inch thick slices of multi-grain baguette (cut on the diagonal) on both sides with extra-virgin olive oil. Then, I spread about a tablespoon and a half of the cold pasta sauce on top of the bread. This was topped with a sprinkling of fresh basil leaves cut in a chiffonade, then on top of that, thinly sliced tomatoes and a generous, heaping teaspoon of freshly shredded Parmesan cheese.

Then all that is left to do was to place the slices on a tray and pop them under the broiler for a few minutes–until Parmesan is bubbly and melted and the bread is toasted and crisped.

That is all there is to it–and frankly, as much as I love Melanzane con Noci as a pasta sauce–I liked it even better as a bruschetta topping. The rich sauce –a thick puree, garlicky and filled with the flavor of roasted eggplant and nuggets of toasted walnuts–tasted amazing on the crisped bread, and combined with the fragrant basil, tangy fresh tomatoes and salty cheese–it was a delicious contrast of flavors and textures. And I cannot imagine anyone not liking it–even folks who swear they dislike eggplant. It is also the sort of vegetarian dish that could convert the most ardent of meat-eaters!

Which made me think that there must be plenty of other pasta sauces that could be used to top bruschetta.

Have any of you used your leftover pasta sauces in such a way? Or have you done something else with them?

So, what do you do when you have leftover roasted asparagus?

Well, you could put it in an omelet the next morning for breakfast or brunch.

Or, you could add it to pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce.

Or, you could bake it into a casserole, puree it into a soup or mix it into a cheese sauce and use it to top baked potatoe.

Or, you could toss it to a salad made of other sweet spring vegetables and fresh goat cheese then dress it with a simple vinaigrette, which is what I did for dinner last night.

It was probably the most simple way of using up the roasted asparagus I could have come up with–and I have to say it was amazingly tasty,

The salad was a combination of mixed young leaf lettuces, tender baby spinach, julienne strips of sweet red onion, blanched baby sweet peas (you could just use thawed frozen peas if you cannot get young fresh peas), a chiffonade of ramp leaves and tangy, super fresh chevre, all from the farmer’s market. The dressing was a perfectly simple vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard, local honey, sea salt and Aleppo pepper flakes. (Freshly ground black pepper would be great, too.)

It went deliciously with the rest of our dinner–and I think that with the addition of some chopped up boiled egg and toasted black walnuts, it would make a great light lunch.

If only I had some leftover roasted beets to add to the salad–then it would have been perfect! (Not only because the beets would taste great with the asparagus, peas, red onions and greens, but because the color would have looked amazing in the salad. The red onions brought out the reddish violet highlights in the tips of the asparagus spears, and I can only imagine that the rubine translucence of beets would have brought them out even more.

One thing about using leftover roasted asparagus–if you used a solid fat like ghee or butter to roast the vegetable, be certain to warm your asparagus slightly in the microwave in order to melt the fat that is clinging to the spears just before you add it to the salad and toss it with the dressing. Otherwise, you risk having globs of cold ghee or butter in your salad which is just not very appealing.

If you used olive oil or canola oil–any oil that is liquid at room temperature, really–to roast your asparagus, you don’t need to worry about heat it up a bit before serving. Straight out of the fridge will work, though I think it tastes better if you bring it to room temperature before making the salad.

Spring Green Salad With Roasted Asparagus
Ingredients:

2 cups mixed leaf lettuces, washed, dried and torn into bite sized pieces
3 cups baby spinach leaves, washed and dried with any large stems removed
1 cup baby peas, shelled blanched, drained and chilled (or use thawed frozen peas)
1 1/2 cups roasted asparagus spears cut into 1″ lengths and brought to room temperature
1/2 cup red onion, cut into julienne
1/2 cup crumbled fresh goat cheese
1/4 cup chiffonade cut ramp leaves (or use green garlic leaves)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons honey
1/8 teaspoon salt
Aleppo pepper flakes or freshly grond black pepper to taste

Method

Toss the lettuces, spinach, peas, asparagus spears, onion, cheese and ramps in a large bowl.

Whisk together the remaining ingredients until an emulsion is formed. Drizzle as much dressing as you like over your salad and toss to combine.

Serve immediately.

Leftover stir-fried dishes in my house usually don’t last long enough to be turned into anything else. Usually they go home with people–Morganna takes some back to her dorm room for lunch the next day, or I send some home with Dan or Amy for meals the next day. Or, if it is a chicken dish that Kat particularly likes, I leave some to go with rice for her lunch the next day or for dinner, or what have you.

But sometimes, I seriously mess up and make too much of something or another.

And then it is time to make Leftover Fried Rice.

Which is just what it sounds like it is–it is a vehicle to use not only leftover rice–which is what the Chinese invented the stuff to do–you make too much rice, which is the staff of life and is thus not to be wasted, so you let it get cold and dried out a bit and you fry it the next day with some aromatics, some vegetables and bits of tofu or meat or seafood and eggs and wham! You have a quick lunch or snack, and your rice goes to a far better place than the compost pile or the slop bucket for the pigs.

At my house, when I have too much stir-fry leftovers to use up within a few days, I plan on making fried rice. I save up rice in the fridge, and in the past, I have saved up tidbits from two and sometimes three different stir-fries. I always have eggs around, and there are always a sad handful of carrots, some dried or fresh mushrooms, maybe a half a bunch of broccoli or asparagus or a tiny handful of snow peas and one or two scallions, and these get cut up to go into the fried rice as well.

In the case of this batch of Leftover Fried Rice, henceforth to be known as LFR, I had about 2/3 of a quart container of Chicken with Bacon and Bok Choy, as well as the handful of carrots, some chopped cilantro that didn’t get used to garnish tacos earlier this week and some sliced scallion tops that didn’t make it into the quesadillas from Monday. I also had some frozen peas thawed out for Kat to eat and she didn’t eat many of them, so I used those, and a half a bunch of asparagus that didn’t get stir-fried on Saturday. With the four fresh shiitakes leftover from a pasta dish on Sunday and the last couple of eggs in the fridge, I had plenty of goodness to go into the fried rice.

Making LFR is ridiculously simple.

All you need to do is to cut up some aromatics–scallions or onions, some fresh ginger and garlic and maybe add some fermented black beans, and have them ready. Then, whatever vegetables you have, cut them up in about the same size and shape as the ones in the stir-fry that you are using up in the LFR. This keeps it all pretty.

Then, you gather the condiments you are going to use in your fried rice.

If you want your rice to be brown, you need to use either thick soy sauce or dark soy sauce mixed with a little bit of ground bean sauce. I am beginning to prefer doing the latter because it has more flavor–the thick soy sauce that comes in a jar is really sweet because of the molasses in it. The combination of dark soy sauce and ground bean sauce is much more tasty, I think, in large part because of the natural glutamates in both condiments, which gives that savory umami taste that everyone likes so well.

You can add some chili garlic sauce or paste or some sesame oil if you want for extra flavor.

Once everything is cut up, you need to put everything into the order it is going into the wok in your workspace. Aromatics go first, with onions or scallions first, then fermented black beans if you use them or ginger and garlic. Then, if you have any raw meats, they go in next, or mushrooms can go in here, or tofu. Then, your cold leftover stir fries go in, with uncooked vegetables next, going in the order of which one takes longer to cook. Carrots always win this contest, with green beans next, then broccoli, and so on. Then, the rice goes in, and the condiments, then the eggs and the garnishes and that is it.

There are a few tricks to it.

One–always start with cold, fairly dry rice, and always break it out of its clumps before you cook it. If you start with it hot, you will end up with mushy rice that sticks to your wok, and no one likes that, least of all your wok. If you don’t break up the clumps before it goes in the wok, you have to do it after it goes in the wok and that can get messy, what with rice flying out of the wok in all directions as you chop at it madly with your wok shovel. So, take my advice and just lightly oil your hands and squish up any clumps you have by hand, getting as many grains of rice separated as possible from each other.

Two–beat your eggs well. You want them to be a nice uniform yellow in color and lightly thickened.

Three–you have to use more oil in the cooking of fried rice than you do in any of my regular stir-fry recipes, but you don’t have to use as much as they do in restaurants–I usually use no more than a third of a cup of oil and usually, I can get by with four tablespoons. Use as little as you can at first, and later, when the rice goes into the wok, if it sticks, you can add a bit more.

Four–if you can, bring your leftover stir fried bits to room temperature before cooking them. It keeps you from over cooking them the second time around and it keeps you from cooking down the wok overmuch. Bring your rice to room temperature, too, if you can.

That is about it.

Oh, and you can use any kind of stir-fried stuff in here you want. I’ve used leftover stir-fried Thai dry curries before in LFR, and I have also used leftover Ma Po Tofu which isn’t even stir-fried–it is braised. I have also used leftover Red-Cooked Beef–which is also braised, and leftover Dry-Fried String Beans and Steamed Chinese Sausages–and they all went fine in :LFR.

And the truth is–I have sneaked leftover andouille sausage and ham and bits of vegetables from non-Asian dishes in LFR, and it all turned out pretty darned tasty.

So, go for it–be wild, be free, and use up the little bits of this and that you have in your fridge. Food is too precious and expensive to waste.

Oh–and one more thing. LFR is great cold, but you can also use it to stuff in vegetables before roasting them. If you do that, just be sure and roast the stuffing veggies halfway before you stuff them, and then drizzle the stuffing after it is inside the veggies with some broth to keep it moist. Cover them tightly with foil so there is no drying out and then serve when the vegetables are tender and steamy.

Very tasty way to serve larger zucchini, for example.

Leftover Fried Rice–A General Guideline
Ingredients–Everything Except the Rice, the Leftovers, Some Aromatics and the Eggs is Optional:

4 tablespoons to 1/3 cup canola or peanut oil
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced onions or 2 bunches of scallions, white and light green parts sliced thinly on the diagonal
2 tablespoons fermented black beans, optional
1/4 cup minced fresh ginger
5-8 cloves garlic, minced
2-4 cups leftover stir-fried stuff–or braised meats or tofu or whatever you think will taste good together with the rice and other stuff you have gleaned from your fridge
1-2 cups fresh, uncooked vegetables cut up so they are in pieces similar to your leftover stir fry bits, optional
4-6 cups cooked cold long-grain rice–clumps broken up
1 1/2 tablespoons thick soy sauce or 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce and 1 1/2 tablespoons ground bean sauce
2 eggs very well beaten
1 cup thinly sliced scallion tops, and/or chopped cilantro leaves, and/or thawed frozen peas–all are optional
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil–you guessed it–optional
salt to taste–yes, this is optional, too–I bet you are surprised

Method:

First, clean out your refrigerator of anything that is edible and that will taste good in your LFR. Use your judgment here, but don’t be afraid to experiment. Leftover grilled corn on the cob, so long as you remove it from the cob before it goes into the wok -will- taste great in this–even if it isn’t anywhere near traditional. Remember, the point if this dish is not authenticity to any preconceived notion of what you think of as fried rice–the point is to use up leftovers in a tasty, non-wasteful fashion. So clean out your fridge, and cut and prep all of your ingredients. Lay them out in the order in which they will go into the wok, as outlined in the post above and in the ingredient list.

Heat your wok on high heat until a thin ribbon of smoke drifts up from it. Add the oil–add a smaller amount first–you can add the rest later. Heat one minute, until it shimmers and moves with convection currents in the wok.

Add the onions or scallions. Cook, stirring until they brown lightly and soften–this takes longer with the onions. If you are using fermented black beans, add them when the onions or scallions are halfway cooked.

Add the ginger and garlic and cook one more minute.

Add the leftover stir fry or cooked whatevers. Stir and cook for about a minute before you start adding raw vegetables, remembering to add the ones that take longer to cook, such as carrots or mushrooms, first. Use your common sense here. Big broccoli stalks will take longer to cook than skinny green beans or asparagus, though big stalks of asparagus will take longer, unless you cut them in thin diagonal slices or blanch them first. So, after the leftover bits cook for a minute to warm up, start adding the raw vegetables.

Cook until the raw veggies are just starting to look sort of done.

Add the rice. Stir, chop, stir, scrape, stir, chop, stir, scrape. Make sure you don’t need more oil. If you do, clear a spot in the center of the wok and add it there. Stir, scrape, chop. Add the thick soy sauce or the dark soy sauce and ground bean sauce. Stir, scrape, stir, toss–this requires strong forearms. Cook and stir until everything is mixed nicely together, everything smells nice, everything is brownish and there are no clumps of rice stuck together.

Scrape a bare spot in the center of the wok and pour in the egg. Stir until the egg is as done as you like it–I do mine until they are half way done, but most people cook them all the way, then scrape them into eggy bits and stir them in then. I do mine until they are half-cooked and then stir them in and let the heat of the rice finish cooking them–this way they dissolve into the rice and make it lightly sticky so that it is easier to eat with chopsticks and it gives it a rich, delicious flavor. The more traditional way of cooking them all the way and then stirring them in is good, too.

Remove wok from heat. Stir in whatever garnishes you have, if you have any.

Add sesame oil if you want, and stir well.

Serve it forth, eat heartily and happily and be of glad heart for your refrigerator is clean and you have wasted no food this day.