Pepper Prawn Fried Rice

Hello, you! Thank you for stopping by.

Today, I’m going to share my recipe for a very aromatic and delicious Pepper Prawn Fried Rice. I made this rice using fresh prawns, capsicum (green bell pepper), egg and some aromatics. This fried rice is waaaaaaaayyyyy better than a restaurant take-out fried rice. You will see!

So, this is a quick recipe, provided you have all the ingredients at hand, pre-cooked rice, scrambled egg, marinated prawns and some chopped aromatics. Well, that is probably true for almost all Chinese dishes. But anyway, the aromatics I used today are scallions (spring onion), ginger and garlic.

A few things to keep in mind while making this dish:

1. Pre- cooked rice: 2 day old rice is best for making any fried-rice dish. That being said, I cooked some rice in the morning (10am) and let it cool on a large plate for the whole day (6.30pm) and it still turned out great. However, using fresh, hot rice is a no-no. While tossing and mixing the rice, it’ll get a little sticky and mushy. Not nice.

   

2. Soy Sauce: My recipe calls for 2 kinds of soy sauce- Light Soy sauce (to marinate prawns) and Dark Soy sauce (to flavour and season the rice). The light soy sauce is thinner and more saltier- perfect for marinating. Whereas, dark soy sauce is slightly thicker, richer in flavour and less salty-it is great to season and flavour rice or other sauce based dishes. But, if you have just one soy sauce, you can make do with that, just monitor the salt you will be adding at every stage. You definitely do not want to over season the final dish.
3. Aromatics: Since, this fried rice requires very few ingredients, I have used generous portions of the aromatics. They form the flavour base of the fried rice. So, do not scrimp!
4. Scrambled egg: I scrambled the egg at the beginning, with a tiny amount of oil, although the addition of the eggs is after the cooking of the prawns. I just prefer it this way. I just feel that it is easier to over cook or over-scramble the egg if its cooked alongside the prawns, thats all. I like the scrambled egg to be visible in the final dish. Its one of my pet peeves to see small, tiny fragments of egg throughout the rice. 

Now, for the recipe:

Prep time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

To marinate the prawns:

1. Prawns- around 30-35 nos of prawns; small-medium size (roughly 400-450 grams)
2. Light Soy sauce- 2 tbsp
3. Rice Wine- 1 tbsp (rice vinegar or any ordinary vinegar will also do)
4. Sesame oil- 1 tsp (use any oil but sesame gives best flavour)
5. Black pepper powder- 1 tsp

For fried rice:

1. Marinated prawns
2. Cooked rice- 6-7 cups
3. Green bell pepper- 3/4 of a pepper, sliced lengthwise, then halved
4. Scallions- 8 stalks (onion bulb and leaf part separated; both finely chopped)
5. Ginger- 2 inch piece, cut in matchsticks
6. Garlic- 8-10 nos, finely sliced (use more if you like the taste of garlic)
7. Eggs- 3-4 nos
8. Dark soy sauce- 2-3 tbsp
9. Black pepper powder- 1-2 tsp
10. Oil- 3-4 tbsp
11. salt- to taste (I used 2 tsp salt in the end)

Procedure:

1. First marinate the prawns. Mix all the ingredients under ‘to marinate the prawns’ and set aside. If you want to marinate the prawns before hand, you can marinate and refrigerate it. No need to add salt at this stage as the light soy is quite salty.
2. Place a wok or a casserole type deep vessel on medium heat, add 1 tbsp oil and crack the eggs in it. Gently break the egg yolks and mix the yolks with the whites. Let it cook for 1-2 minutes. Just when it is setting, scramble the eggs (not vigorously) and stop when the scrambled pieces are all around 1 inch in size. Remove from cooking vessel and set aside.
3.  Increase the heat to medium-high and in the same casserole, add the remaining oil and fry the chopped scallions, sliced ginger and garlic. Fry for 1-2 minutes or until they are golden and aromatic. Do not let them become brown.
4. Add the sliced green bell peppers and fry for 1 minute. Then add the marinated prawns at this stage and fry till they are almost cooked. Mix well.
5. Now, add the scrambled eggs and mix well for about 30 seconds. Then add the pre-cooked rice and stir well. Increase the heat to the high setting and stir well. Add 1-2 tsp of the black pepper powder and keep stirring for 1-2 minutes.
6. Add 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce at a time and stir. Stop adding the soy sauce when you have got a light-medium brown colour rice. Taste a bit of rice and add salt as per taste.
7. Mix in some of the chopped green leaves of the scallions. Reserve some for garnish. Enjoy!

I hope you love this recipe as much as I do. It tastes great and is a perfect dinner any time of the week!

If you try this recipe, make sure to let me know how you liked it.

Thanks,

Susan A