More from the back of the can…And a Universal recipe.

You don’t have to be a Spam guy to like this, but if you just can’t get your head around the idea of Spam, use a ham slice instead, and some generous shakes of Tabasco.

But Spam has gone practically healthy on us. Remember when your Spam came in a can with a key and you rolled the top off by inserting the little metal tab in the key slot and rolled up a metal band around the key exposing some pink meat (and the tab broke off and the can was pure Hell to open)? When the can got open, there was this geletenous stuff around the meat, and that wasn’t too appetizing, but you could scrape that off and enjoy the wonderful, salty spamilicious Spam, fried to perfection for your sandwich or casserole or a tastey addition to vegetable soup… even for Mom’s Chop Suey.

Now, there’s a tab on top, just like your can of soup, and the top effortly peels off and there’s a way to squeeze the ends of the can and shake the brick of Spam out onto your cutting board. And there’s no fatty geletenous stuff.

Not only that, but there’s a lot less sodium, fat and cholestoral than in the olden days.

But I digress. This is about the ease and delight of making Fried Rice at home. You’ve all had the Fried Rice at your favorite Chinese restaurant or take-out, and it may have been good, or really good, or greasy and awful. Well, fried rice at home is easy and good and soaks up leftovers like Sheryl Crow soaks up the sun. It’s the Asian hash, and if you’ve read much of this blog, you know I love hash.

After researching recipes from the Spam Can and from Cook’s Illustrated and from Julia at Mariquita Farm, I devised a Universal Fried Rice recipe, which is included after Shirley’s swell stuff.

So, here’s the Shirley’s Coffee Shop, Guam USA FRIED RICE, as printed on the back of a Hot & Spicy SPAM can. At least it used to be. Sad to say, my local Safeway no longer carries the Hot & Spicy Spam.

Shirley’s Coffee Shop FRIED RICE

4 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
6 cups steamed rice
1/4 cup chopped scallion
1 12 ounce can SPAM hot & spicy, cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups cooked diced carrots
salt

Put oil in wok or skillet. Pour eggs and stir until almost done. Add SPAM. Scramble with eggs thoroughly. Add rice, carrots and salt and cook until hot. Add scallions and stir evenly for 10 seconds. Serve.

“Shirley’s Coffee Shops serve the best fried rice in Guam and througout Micronesia.”

This is good stuff. I prefer to remove the cooked eggs to a warm plate then add back at the end. I also think it’s important that the rice has been stored in the refrigerator for at least a day, not fresh cooked. I also think this benefits from a sauce of Oyster Sauce and Soy Sauce as noted below.

UNIVERSAL FRIED RICE RECIPE

First, measure your leftover rice and proportion the other ingredients accordingly.

Eggs
2 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

Cookables
Basically whatever you’ve got, such as:
chopped celery
chopped carrot
small leek, split and sliced
cauliflower flowerets, chopped
chopped red onion
broccoli

Those are some ideas, anything will do…about 1 1/2 cups, altogether

Heatables
Leftover meat or fish, about 3/4 cup, chopped
Leftover cooked vegetable(s)

Sauce
A hearty tablespoon of sauce for each cup of rice.
CI does oyster Sauce and Soy Sauce 4:1
Julia (the Mariquita Farm Julia) does soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar.
Teriyaki sauce could substitute anywhere.

Rice
Leftover, cold rice in proportion to other ingredients (freshly cooked rice won’t work, gets gummy). For this recipe, 3 cups.

Heat enough oil in a 10 or 12-inch sauté pan or a wok to cover the bottom
Add the eggs and scramble quickly with a wooden spoon, reserve on a heated plate (which will be your serving plate).

Add oil to the pan and add the cookables. Sauté 2 or 3 minutes to cook, but not get soft.

Add the heatables and stir for a minute to warm.

Add the rice and stir for a minute to warm.

Stir in the sauce.

Stir in the reserved eggs, stir all to combine and warm.

Serve.

The Proof is in the Pudding…

Here’s what I made to take the pictures. As you can see, it’s very flexible:

I had 3 cups leftover rice (from braised shortribs, see subsequent post)

Cooked 1 cup diced Spam and 3/4 cup each of diced carrots and celery.

Added rice and stirred to combine.

Added 2 chopped boiled eggs.

Added 2 pimentos from a jar and 1 dill pickle slice, chopped. Stirred to combine.

Added sauce of 2T oyster sauce, 3/4T soy sauce and 1/4T sesame chili oil

Stirred to combine and warm.

Served and took pictures.

It was so good that Carol—who said she wasn’t hungry—scarfed up the leftover.