Frisée and Wild Mushroom Salad with Poached Eggs

Pretty self explanatory.

Ingredients

• 10-12oz creminis, sliced (or whatever mushrooms you can get your hands one)
• 2 small heads of frisée, torn into bite-sized bits
• Enough eggs for however many servings
• olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• salt

Straightforward recipe: Saute the creminis in some olive oil. When they're cooked down, toss them with the frisee. Squeeze lemon juice over the whole thing. Poach eggs and top the salad with the poached eggs. Done.

Thoughts: Simple and delicious. I don't know how often we find ourselves in possession of frisée, but that's a farm share for you. In the future, I might consider adding thinly shaved parmesan or similar. Actually, we did this a few times when we had it. So there you go. Could possibly have used a bit more "dressing" - if I were to do it again, I'd make a light vinaigrette but with lemon juice instead of vinegar, and possibly mayo instead of mustard as an emulsifier.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Green Bean Casserole

Did you think I was done blogging?

Ingredients

• 1 generous lb of green beans, cut to 1" sticks (ends trimmed off)
• 1 onion, sliced
• 8oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
• garlic
• 1 tsp thyme
• splash of wine (vermouth in our case) for deglazing
• 2tbsp butter
• 2tbsp flour
• 1c milk
• somewhere between 1/2c and 1c blue cheese, crumbled
• panko bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400. In a big (preferably oven safe) saute pan, cook the onion until it's beginning to caramelize - 10 minutes or so - with some olive oil. Then add the mushrooms and cook a couple more minutes until those begin to soften. Then add garlic and thyme and deglaze with the wine. Then add the green beans and simmer until they're still crisp but JUST starting to get tender - about 5 minutes. This is called "tender-crisp" I think so as to be as pretentious and confusing as possible. I hate that phrase.

In a separate pan, melt the butter, add the flour and cook. Add the milk and bring to a simmer, at which time it will thicken. Then add the blue cheese and stir until melted. Pour this over the green beans you just cooked in the other pan and stir to coat. Top the whole thing with panko bread crumbs. Now pop the whole thing in the oven for 10 minutes. The top is supposed to brown in this time, but ours didn't for whatever reason so I turned on the broiler and let it go another minute(ish). Done!

Thoughts: We were looking for a good alternative to green bean casserole that didn't include french's onions or campbell's cream of mushroom soup, and I think this was a good one! I would definitely do this again. On the other hand, I think just about anything will taste good if you pour blue cheese mornay sauce on it.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Straightforward cream of mushroom soup has deep flavor and none of that paste-y consistency that comes when you add thickeners.

Ingredients

• 3tbsp butter (ish)
• 1/2 a red onion, chopped
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 20oz cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 1.5c water
• 2c chicken stock (you could probably substitute for veg)
• 1/2oz dried mushrooms - we used oyster mushrooms, though porcinis would be good.
• 1/6c dry sherry (we actually used Marsala, which worked very well.)
• 1/2c heavy cream
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• salt to taste

Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add the onion and cook until translucent, then add the garlic and nutmeg. Cook for another 30 seconds (until fragrant) and add the creminis. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, then set heat to low and cover. Let them cook 15-20 minutes, stirring (again) occasionally. Add the stock, water, and dried mushrooms and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes (probably don't have to stir at all). Then, working in batches (or however you want to do it), blend the soup in a blender. You might be able to get away with an immersion blender here, but I'm not sure. Anyway, return to the pot and add the sherry, cream, and lemon juice. Season with salt to taste.

Thoughts: This was actually kind of time-consuming, but only because it was the first time we made it, I think, and we wanted to watch it all the time. Otherwise, the flavor was fantastic. I think we did something really smart here. Only complaint I think could be legitimately raised is that there isn't a lot of textural variety. I'm not sure what I would want to fix that. Probably some crusty bread would do the trick, or something equivalent. Not sure. Anyway, definitely make this soup.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Quiche

Well that was easy. Note - makes TWO quiches. So. Think about that.

Ingredients

• Custard
• 2 pie shells
• 5 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 2/3c skim milk
• 1/3c butter (about 5tbsp), melted
• 1tsp salt
• 1/4tsp black pepper
• 1/4tsp nutmeg
• 1/2tsp rosemary
• about 1c summer sausage (or ham), cubed
• Other fillings
• 1/2 a red onion, chopped
• 1/2 a red bell pepper, chopped
• 4-8oz mushrooms, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic
• about 1 bag of fresh spinach
• about 1c shredded dill havarti
• olive oil, as necessary

It looks complicated but it's not. Take the pie shells out of the freezer and set aside to thaw. Preheat the oven to 350. Mix all the custard ingredients together. Now, saute the vegetables, then wilt the spinach in some olive oil. Place all that in the bottom of the pie tins. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the tins, then pour the custard over everything. Place in the oven for 45 minutes, or until the egg is set. Remove and let cool for 15 minutes or so. Also great re-warmed the next day!

Thoughts: This was awesome. We might adjust the veg ratios in the future, but it wouldn't be necessary. One possibility would be to see if cutting out the butter would still work. I think typically you're actually supposed to use 2%, whole, or half-and-half, but we didn't have that so we made do with butter and milk. I'm not sure how much the butter added, though - a lot of it kind of melted and then floated to the top of the quiches when they cooked. Even so, it's so good that maybe we don't want to mess with it. I don't know.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Luo Bo Gao

Radish cakes!

Ingredients

• 1 large daikon radish
  
• maybe 1/4c dried mushrooms
  
• 3oz ground pork
  
• 3 scallions
  
• soy sauce, salt
  
• rice flour
  

Peel and grate the daikon radish finely (it actually wouldn't grate on the "fine" side of my box grater, so I went with the normal side - this will work fine). Boil some water, and pour it over the dried mushrooms to rehydrate. with a little sesame oil or neutral oil, start the ground pork cooking in a pot. Cook until just brown. Then fish out the dried mushrooms from the water (reserving the mushroom liquid) and chop coarsely. Add to the pork along with the scallions, chopped. Cook a little longer and then transfer to another bowl.

In the bowl in which you cooked the pork, add the daikon and the reserved water from the mushrooms. If there isn't much water, you may need to add a little more (or add a little soy sauce) until the daikon is moist but not drowning in liquid. I don't really have a good rule of thumb for this - you kind of have to experiment. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add the pork / scallions / mushrooms and combine. Now add rice flour to the mixture until you get something resembling a pretty thick batter. For 1 daikon, I used about 1-2c rice flour. The first time I made this, I actually added more water so I could add more rice flour. This was a good idea - if the pieces of things in the batter are pretty big, adding quite a bit of rice flour will help your luo bo gao with internal consistency. On the other hand, too much might make for gluey radish cakes. You have to experiment, but if you can get 1.5c rice flour into your batter, I think you're in good shape.

Pour the batter into small loaf pans or basically anything you can then put in a steamer. Steam for 40 minutes, being sure to check the water level frequently and replenishing as necessary. When they're done, take them out and cool to room temperature, then chill for at least 2 hours. When you're ready to serve them, turn the "cakes" out and slice them, then fry lightly on a griddle to crisp up the outside. Serve with soy sauce.

Thoughts: The first time we did this, we got the texture more or less correct, which was pretty cool considering I didn't have rice flour (and instead just ground up rice in my coffee grinder - very tricky). But the flavor was a little bland the first time because we used fresh mushrooms. The second time, the flavor was great, but we used WAY too many dried mushrooms and the texture was way off. It's a work in progress. I think next time we'll use fewer dried mushrooms but we'll also use a little bit more rice flour.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Kidneys au Vin Blanc

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 5 lamb's kidneys, sliced, with the middle parts removed
• 3 tbsp flour
• salt and pepper
• 2 oz. mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tsp fresh chopped herbs (we used parsley and Italian seasoning)
• 2/3 cup white wine
• 2/3 cup chicken stock
• 3 large tomatoes, skinned, quartered, and seeded
• croutons to garnish

To skin the tomatoes, we blanched them in boiling water for about 30 seconds and then dumped them in an ice bath. The skin came off very easily.
I can't really tell you the best way to prepare kidneys. I didn't know there would be weird tubes and shit on the inside, but there were, and there seemed to be no good way to extricate them. I ended up butchering them pretty bad, as it were. But the preparation doesn't really matter, I don't think. As long as you can remove the middle part, you're good to go.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is translucent. Add the mangled kidneys and fry until lightly browned. Don't overcook them! They will get rubbery.
Remove the pan from heat and stir in the flour, herbs, stock, wine, mushrooms, salt, and pepper.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Add the quartered tomatoes and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Serve garnished with croutons.

Thoughts: Weird. I feel pretty ambivalent about this recipe. I mean, if you like kidneys, this is a great recipe. The flavor was great and the preparation was super easy. If, however, you've never had kidneys before (like me), I don't know if I can recommend this recipe. Kidneys have a very strong flavor and a texture that's sort of similar to mushrooms. The rest of the recipe was really good, but I'll admit that the kidneys squicked me out. If we were to make this recipe again, I think we would lose the tomatoes. They didn't add much. Dan says the recipe was really weird and that he probably wouldn't make it again. He objected to the scent of uric acid that emanated from the kidneys. But, on the other hand, they were very tender. Maybe because they came from lambs and not sheep.

Disaster Index: This is difficult. I would give it a 1-2/10, but we would never make it again. If you like kidneys, I highly recommend this recipe. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Edit: Three weeks out and I can still remember exactly what these kidneys tasted like. Very MEMORABLE.

Pasta with Sausage and Mushrooms in Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

• ~1lb smallish pasta, like rigatoni or radiatori
  
• 2 hot Italian sausage links, chopped into 1/2" slices
  
• 2-3c cremini mushrooms, quartered
  
• olive oil, cooking wine, salt, pepper
  
• about 1c half-and-half
  
• 2oz chevre cheese
  
• 10-20 kale leaves, steamed, or a roasted red pepper, seeded and chopped
  

Set the pasta cooking. In a separate pot, cook the sausage in some olive oil until it gets some caramelization. Add the mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring occasionally. Once they are fairly well cooked, add a splash of cooking wine and scrape the bottom of the pot to get the well-caramelized bits of sausage up. Set aside.

In the mean time, blend together the cooked kale or pepper, the half-and-half, and the chevre. Don't add all the half-and-half at once - slowly add it until the thickness looks right (and it blends). In the case of the kale, we had to return the mixture to the stove, cook for a while, and then return to the blender. Kale can be kind of tough.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it (thought not necessarily all the way - the starchy pasta water helps the sauce stick). Combine all the parts of the recipe together and stir to coat. Season as needed.

Thoughts: This was great, both times we did it. It would be really easy to modify the recipe by using frozen spinach, which is easier to come by, or you could just use tomato. It was really easy to make (especially with both of us working on it). I would continue to talk about the virtues and flexibility of this recipe, but I can't think of anything else, and I'm watching the Oscars right now. It's kinda tough to concentrate.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Portobello Pizza

Ingredients

• 2 large portobello mushrooms, de-stemmed and de-gilled
• olive oil
• goat cheese
• pesto
• salt
• pepper
• garlic powder
• tomatoes (grape or normal ones)
  

Heat griddle to high heat. Brush the tops and bottoms of the mushrooms with olive oil.
When the griddle is hot, place the mushroom bottom-side down on the griddle and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Grill for 2-3 minutes.
Flip the mushrooms, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Grill for 2-3 minutes.
After 2-3 has passed, fill the mushroom caps with pesto. Then dot with goat cheese. Cover the mushrooms with the lid of a soup pot (one that will cover the mushrooms completely without squishing them). The original recipe calls for these to be cooked on a grill, and to melt the cheese by covering the top of the grill. If you have a grill, you can do this, but if you're doing it on a griddle, then covering the mushrooms with a lid is as close as you're going to get. Just make sure the lid isn't plastic or anything.
Once the cheese has melted to your satisfaction, remove the mushrooms from the griddle.
Slice the tomatoes into appropriate slices and put them on the mushrooms.
Eat.

Thoughts: This was pretty delicious and pretty easy. It is not in the least bit healthy for you, despite the mushrooms and tomatoes. At least we're using olive oil, which has the right kind of fat. The kind of fat in goat cheese is NOT the right kind. You could probably substitute goat cheese for something like mozzarella, which would be WAY healthier. It would probably be pretty good too. Also you could lighten up on the pesto, which is like, 115 calories per 1/8th cup. So think about that. Overall, pretty delicious though.

Disaster Index: 2/10

key lime shrimp with mushrooms and rice

This is based off of a Bobby Flay recipe. The original calls for lobster tail, so...yeah, we didn't use that. Because we have no money.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces of cremini mushrooms, sliced
  
• 2 cups of small shrimps
• 1 scallion/green onion, sliced
  
• 2 tbsp white wine
• 1/2 cup key lime sauce (1/2 cup margarine, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, generous pinch of pepper, generous pinch of cayenne pepper, 2 tbsp fresh key lime juice)
• 1 cup medium-grain rice

Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add sliced mushrooms and scallion and cook until the mushrooms start to sweat.
At the same time, start the rice. Add 1 cup rice with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, uncovered. Then reduce to simmer, cover, and let it sit until done (about 10-15 minutes). Don't stir it too often or check on it too often, otherwise it will get soggy.
Make the key lime sauce. Just mix all the above ingredients together.
When the mushrooms are tender enough, add the key lime sauce and white wine. Let cook for about 2 minutes.
Add the shrimp. Since we used pre-cooked shrimp, we only had to cook them for like, a minute to heat them through. If you're using raw shrimp, you'll want to add them sooner. But don't overcook them either way.
Remove from heat, serve with the rice. Nom nom nom.

Thoughts: I would have preferred a little less lime juice in the key lime sauce. It was a little too citrus-y for me. But Dan liked it. He actually added more lime juice than was in the original recipe. Maybe next time we'll add the normal amount of lime juice and serve key limes on the side so people can add the amount they want. Overall, pretty darn delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tom Yum Soup

This is based off of a recipe that my dad sent me.
Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken stock (or veg)
  
• 15 kaffir lime leaves
• 3 large lemongrass stalks, cleaned, bruised, and cut into 2-inch segments
• 3.5 tbp freshly squeezed lime juice --> should be 1 tbs
  
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
  
• 10 ounces firm tofu
• 1 can straw mushrooms
• 1 tbp roasted chili paste
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup rice, mixed with 2 cups chicken stock (or veg) (if you want to eat this with rice) --> should be 3 cups
  

In a large soup pot, bring the chicken stock to a boil over high heat. When stock is boiling, add the lemongrass and half of the lime leaves. We cracked them down the center (without breaking them) to release the flavors a little bit.
Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes, until the lemongrass turns sort of a brown color.
While the soup is cooking, mix the green onions, the lime juice, the rest of the lime leaves (again, cracked down the center), and some cilantro in a large serving bowl. Stir to combine. Set aside.
After the soup is done simmering, scoop out the lemongrass stalks and discard. You don't want to eat these.
Raise the soup heat to high again and add the straw mushrooms, the brown sugar, the soy sauce, the salt, the tofu, and the chili paste. Stir well to combine. When the soup begins to boil, remove the soup from heat and add it to the serving bowl.
We cooked the rice with chicken stock and ate it with this soup. But you don't have to. Or you could use rice noodles as well (this might work better, actually).

Thoughts: This was really easy to make. It took like, 40 minutes (rice included). By itself, the soup probably took closer to 20.
Also, I misread the original recipe that my dad sent me and accidentally put 3 tbs of lime juice in the soup, so it was a little citrus-y for me. In the future, I would put like, 1 tbs in and then serve the soup with lime wedges on the side so people can control the amount of lime juice in the soup. If you find that the soup is too sour, add more brown sugar and that should cut the sourness.
Also, I intentionally put in half of the chili paste as was in the original recipe, and I'm glad I did because there was quite a bit of heat from just the 1 tsp.
I would say that shrimp would probably be good in this recipe too, if you aren't fond of tofu.
Overall, pretty killer recipe.

Disaster index: 2/10. pretty solid. thanks dad.

Vegetable Roulade Mk. II

This was another experiment. I didn't use a recipe for any of this, so it's all approximate.

Ingredients

• Dough:
  
  
  
  • 2.5c flour
    
  • 1.5tsp sugar
    
  • 2tsp salt
    
  • 1.25tsp yeast
    
  • 3tbsp olive oil
    
  • cold water
    
  • Herbs de Provence, garlic powder, parsley, pepper, oregano
    
  
  
• Filling
  
  
  
  • 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
    
  • 1/2 white onion, finely chopped
    
  • Some crushed tomatoes
    
  • sliced cremini mushrooms
    
  • ~4oz feta
    
  
  

So for the dough, I did the normal dough method (see previous roulade recipe / pizza dough recipe) except for the slight difference that I used only about half the yeast and let it rise for about double the time. It didn't rise QUITE as much in the oven, but it had a great texture, flaky yet soft. It didn't even have all that much oil. So that was a success. The addition of garlic powder from previous pizza doughs was also good. Make sure that you season it a little more than you think you should. You won't regret it.

So prepare dough and let it rise for five hours. You're going to have to do the "microwave trick" for this (boil water in microwave, put dough in microwave to rise because it's super humid). When it's done rising, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll to about 11"x19". It will be about 1/4" thick. Top dough with toppings, and roll the thing into a log (the long way). Cut into as many slices as you possibly can (I managed about 10) and place these as you cut them onto a greased, floured baking sheet, cut side down. Bake at 375 "until it looks right" - the dough gets dry around the edges and starts to show signs of browning.

Thoughts: The dough for this recipe worked a lot better. Problem was, Emily and I had planned on putting spinach on this as well, and we forgot. Not that it would have mattered - we used more like a whole red onion rather than half, and there was just WAY too much onion. Mushrooms were good, but next time we have to cut them smaller. If we're going to use feta and tomato again, we're going to need a slightly sweeter tomato to take the edge off the sharpness of feta. I would say San Marzano if we can get our hands on it. Otherwise I would cut out the tomato entirely. Finally, the onions NEED to be sauteed first before you put them on the dough. Oh my god. They just don't cook sufficiently in the oven. So while this was tasty, it had WAY too many toppings (next time scale back to 1/3s of onions, less mushrooms), we FORGOT some toppings (spinach) and the onions were really sharp.

Still, the dough was a big success.

Disaster Index: 4/10 - really pretty good to eat, but it could have been a lot better.

Pasta with Broccoli and Mushrooms

Eh.

Ingredients

• 1/2lb angel hair pasta (or whatever you prefer)
  
• 3/2c broccoli florets (smallish segments)
  
• 3/4c cremini mushrooms ("mini portabellas"), sliced thinly
  
• 1 small yellow onion or half of a medium one, chopped
  
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  
• 1/5c vermouth (well, okay, just like one good splash to deglaze the pan)
  
• salt, pepper, parsley, whatever else you like
  

Start the pasta boiling in a pot. In a separate pan, begin sautéeing the onion with the garlic and seasonings. When the onion begins to get translucent, throw in the mushrooms. When the onion is just a little brown and the mushrooms have given off a little liquid, add the vermouth and let it cook off. Then throw in the broccoli and stir around. My broccoli was frozen so it took a while to cook. By this point, the pasta will be getting close to done. Take some of the pasta water (about 1/2c) and add it to the onion/broccoli/mushroom mixture. Stir and leave uncovered to reduce a little. When it's reduced (and when the broccoli is cooked to your liking), add the pasta to the sauce and toss to coat. Serve with grated parmesan/romano/whatever.

Thoughts: I mean, it wasn't BAD. There was nothing awful about this preparation, but it didn't really stand out. It was easy enough, and pretty fast, but it was a little bland. I don't know what I would do to fix that. Probably I would use fresher mushrooms (mine were a little dried), more broccoli to pasta ratio (much more), I would cook the broccoli longer, (and that goes for the mushrooms, too) and I would season just a little more heavily, maybe with some rosemary. Finally, I would use a more bite-sized pasta, like radiatore or fusilli. Then we might have something worthwhile on our hands. Or we might have something awful. Hard to say at this point.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - Nothing too terrible; nothing too amazing either.

Pasta with Squash and Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 red onion, chopped finely
• 2 cups cremini mushrooms, slices
  
• 1 small yellow squash, or 1/2 large yellow squash
• 1.5 cups chicken stock (or veg)
  
• 2 tbp dried parsley flakes
• 1 tbp Italian seasoning (or herbes de provence)
• 1 leek, thinly sliced
• 1 lb pasta (we used wavy egg noodles)
• 1 tbp butter
• a little olive oil (2 tbp?)
• 1/4 cup vermouth, to de-glaze pan

Start pasta water.
Chop the red onion, slice the leeks, and put them in a pan with some olive oil and the butter. Carmelize. De-glaze the pan with the vermouth, and add the chopped yellow squash and slices mushrooms.
Water should be boiling. Add pasta if it is.
Add parsley and Italian seasoning. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the mushrooms and squash start to release their juices.
Add stock. Cook until stock is reduced, about 10 minutes.
The pasta should be done. Drain it and add to the sauce. Mix well.
Garnish with Romano or Parmesan or similar cheese.
Devour.

Thoughts: Awesome recipe. Dan recommends using pasta water to mix the stock (if you use powdered stock. This won't work if you use liquid stock) because then the stock will be thicker. I have no recommendations. This was totally awesome. Dan also thinks you could add a splash of lemon juice somewhere in there. The sauce is really low-cal and full of vegetables, so this dish is really good for you.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Ichiro's Rice

This is my version of my mother's version of a recipe she learned from someone like 35 years ago. There's almost something profound going on there.

Well here you go, anyway: Ichiro's fried rice.

Ingredients

• 3c leftover rice (or fresh cooked rice, chilled for two hours or so)
  
• 1/2c carrots, chopped
  
• 1/2c edamame
  
• 3/4c chopped cremini mushrooms
  
• 2tbsp sesame oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• soy sauce
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• salt and pepper
  

The exact things in the vegetables are totally optional. Use whatever you have on hand, preferably leftovers. Suitable vegetables include (but are not limited to) peas, carrots, broccoli, scallions, mushrooms, edamame (we just had some in the freezer at the time), onions, bell peppers, zucchini (yes, we've done it), or whatever else.

Sautee edamame and carrots in oil with garlic. Throw in some salt and pepper. When they're suitably cooked, throw in the mushrooms (as they take much less time to cook). Add about 1-2tsp of soy sauce for added liquid. After about 1 minute, throw in all the rice. Break it up with whatever cooking implement you happen to be using, and throw in just a little more soy sauce. Keep in mind - it's easier to add than to take away. Once the rice is broken up, crack in two eggs directly into the mixture. Break the yolks and stir with the rice. Continue to turn the rice over so the egg cooks, about 1-2 minutes. Take it off the heat and serve.

Thoughts: This is really good with a little Sriracha, and it's barely any work. It's adaptable since you can use pretty much any ingredients. We've considered adding chicken cut into strips, though have yet to try it. Tofu works really well.This is your basic "fried rice" base recipe, and to it you can add just about anything. It's fairly spare on seasonings, though it could use additional ginger. Works better with leftover rice - if you're using chilled fresh rice, cook it a little longer to counter the added moisture.

Claire suggests that next time we use the egg as a protein rather than a binding agent - that is, we move the rice & veg aside and crack the egg into the bottom of the pot. Stir the egg around until it's cooked, and then scrape it off the bottom and cut into slices using the spatula.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10