#ewew cooks XO Fried Rice with Shrimps & Crispy Garlic

Whenever I can't think of what to cook.....a simple fried rice always comes to the rescue!  Not only that, it's darn delicious and it's loved by the young (and old).

It's quick and easy for anyone to whip up with leftover rice and whatever they have in the fridge.  And the best part is....there's no specific recipe to follow.  You can do it really simple with just two ingredients...rice and eggs....or you can make it more decadent by throwing in luncheon meat, shrimps, leftover BBQ meats or Chinese sausage into the mix.  Also, you can add whatever veggies you find in your fridge...long beans, onions, cabbage, carrots, fresh corn, spring onions, anything.

But I'm going to do an "atas" (luxurious) version of XO Fried Rice with Shrimps and Crispy Garlic just because I can since my sister gifted me a jar of Lee Kum Kee's XO sauce recently! ;)

Before I unwrapped the plastic packaging, I saw that the price of one jar (of 80g) XO sauce costs RM26.50! O_o  If it was me, I wouldn't have convinced myself to buy one coz it's so freakin' expensive for such a small jar!  That's why I've never cooked with XO sauce before although I've eaten my fair share of XO fried rice in restaurants.

It's expensive coz XO sauces are made with dried scallops (an expensive main ingredient), dried shrimps (sometimes ham), garlic, chillies and spices.  You can see the scallop strands and there's also quite a bit of oil inside.

Ingredients:

4 cups (or rice bowls) of day-old rice
12 medium-to-large shrimps, peeled
1 - 2 stalks green onions
1 small onion
4 cloves garlic
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp of XO sauce
Salt, pepper and soya sauce to taste

Preparation:

Finely slice the green onions (this can be omitted if your children dislikes spring onions).  Peel and finely chop one small onion and two cloves of garlic.  Thinly slice the other two cloves of garlic (or more) to make the fried garlic crisps.

#Important Tip:

I can't stress enough how important it is to use cooked rice that has been refrigerated overnight for best results.  Refrigerating the rice keeps the rice grains dry so that they won't stick to each other during stir frying.  Making fried rice with fresh rice won't work coz it'll just turn into a wet mess as the rice will be too wet.  But if you plan to make fried rice in large quantities and the fridge doesn't have that much space to store your cooked rice, leaving it outside is fine as long as the rice is cooked the day before (giving it time to become cold and dry up).  There are also those of us (who are health conscious) and won't eat overnight rice, then what you can do is cook the rice on the same day, spread it out and let it cool and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before using.

Method:

Lightly beat 3 eggs and scramble them in a little oil.  Dish up and set aside (and it's ok even if it's not thoroughly cooked through).  I also usually reserve some of the egg mixture to drizzle over the rice at the frying stage.

Fry the thinly sliced garlic in some oil until light golden brown.  Dish up and drain on paper towel.

Leave some of the infused oil from the garlic in the wok (I like to use a non-stick frying to ensure the rice is 100% stick-free!) and fry half the chopped onions.  [#Tip: I'm frying up the rice in two batches so that the amount is not overwhelming to handle, so the recipe henceforth entails only half the amount of the prepared ingredients.]

Once the onions softened and take on a bit of colour, add in the chopped garlic and shrimps.

Next, add the rice and stir fry for a little while ensuring that all the lumps of rice is nicely broken down. Then add in the scrambled eggs, chopped spring onions and drizzle in some of the leftover beaten egg (optional). Lastly add one tablespoon of XO sauce into the mix and toss everything together.

At this time, season your fried rice with salt, pepper and a bit of light soya sauce.  Taste, taste, taste to ensure your seasoning is right.  And our fried rice is ready for plating.

Sprinkle some fried garlic on top and garnish with some fresh Chinese parsley.  There's fried rice...and then there's XO fried rice....yumsss!

Of course the XO Fried Rice with Shrimps and Crispy Garlic was fragrant and aromatic and you can certainly taste the dried scallops although I found the taste of dried prawns to be more prominent.

The XO sauce did enhance the taste and fragrance of the fried rice.  Surprisingly, the XO sauce wasn't as salty as I thought it would be, so you'll need quite a bit of other seasoning to bring savouriness to the dish.

Though it was good....it wasn't 'wow' like the ones I've eaten at restaurants...maybe because I was too "kiam sap" (stingy) and didn't put enough XO sauce into it.  Two tablespoons of it and the jar was like 1/3 gone (it's expensive wor, so must reserve some for other dishes)! >.<

In the end, the XO Fried Rice with Shrimps and Crispy Garlic was fast to make.....and even faster to eat! :D

Serves 3 - 4 (rice bowl portions)