#ewew cooks Shrimp Fried Rice with Fresh Chilli Paste

Well, I've cooked many types of fried rice in my days...as fried rice is comfort food the soul...and my stomach! ;D  And the best thing is...you don't need a recipe for fried rice...it's tossing in a little bit of this and a little bit of that...whatever you fancy, and voila, you have yourself a tasty fried rice.

I've shared an XO Fried Rice (with the help of XO sauce, of course) and a Bacon Fried Rice (with the help of chilli sauce packets) on my blog before.  Otherwise, it's usually cooked with a combination of one (or more) of such seasoning as salt, pepper, light soy, dark soy, sweet soy or oyster sauce.  So, what's so special about this Shrimp Fried Rice then?  Well, for one, I didn't rely on any bottled sauces for flavour but chose to instead blend my own chilli paste with fresh ingredients.

I actually got the inspiration to make a freshly grounded chilli paste due to an AFC snippet I saw of Ili Sulaiman doing it for her fried rice (which she calls Village Fried Rice aka Nasi Goreng Kampung).  Well, I've followed this young lady since she became the winner of Food Hero 2015 and watched her in a couple of shows like Ili's Tiffin Diaries and By The Sea with Ili.  I love her infectious and bubbly personality + she comes off as very natural on TV.

Ok, coming back to my Shrimp Fried Rice with Fresh Chilli Paste, we have to start with making a simple fresh chilli paste from scratch.  Ili blended together 4 shallots, 4 garlic cloves, 8 bird's eye chillies & 150g of dried anchovies for her paste.

I'm a wuss, I substituted the bird's eye chillies with 2 fresh red chillies instead (to reduce the spiciness but left the seeds on for a bit more heat) and blended it together with 6 shallots, 4 garlic cloves and a knob (about an inch) of ginger.  I decided to omit the dried anchovies since I had shrimps in my fried rice.  But you can certainly include the dried anchovies if you're making Ili's version of fried rice with long beans, egg and the fresh chilli paste.

The blended fresh chilli paste looks something like this.  I used only half the paste and kept the rest (so my portion of paste is sufficient for another round of fried rice).  Depending on how spicy or robust a flavour you want, you can certainly use more or all the paste at one go.

For 2 cups of cooked rice, I put in a good 3 tbsp of the blended chilli paste (you can certainly put in more) and saute them in 2 tbsp of oil until aromatic (Ili uses 4 - 6 tbsp of oil and the entire blended paste).  If you're using overnight rice that has been refrigerated, the rice grains tend to dry out and clump together, so use some water to loosen the grains.

I then pushed that aside and drizzle in another 1/2 tbsp of oil to fry the prawns until they turn opaque.  A little bit more garlic won't hurt either.

Once that's done, push that to one side of the pan, add another 1/2 tbsp of oil and crack an egg in.  Break up the yolk with your spatula.

Stir the egg around as if you're making scrambled eggs.

Combine and mix everything together.

At this point, add the rice and season with a combination of salt, soy sauce and a few dashes of white pepper.  Taste until you get the seasoning just right (for home cooking, I usually scale back on the seasoning, so I used 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tbsp light soy only).  You can certainly use more but just know that more soy would make your rice take on a darker colour.

When you're happy with the seasoning, add the chopped spring onions in the last minute and stir that through.  I like to use spring onions as I like the hint of freshness it brings to the fried rice (+ it's more of a Chinese thing).  You can use long beans (or french beans) if you wish but make sure they're added at the same time the prawns go in as they'll need a bit of time to cook through and soften.  Add a little water to release the stuck bits of rice and paste at the bottom of the pan, kinda like deglazing the pan in western cooking.

My Shrimp Fried Rice with Fresh Chilli Paste is ready to go on the plate.  I'm not sure why Ili called this Village Fried Rice as the Nasi Goreng Kampung I've had is more often made with a green cili api paste and usually have fried ikan bilis and kangkung in it.

Anyway, it's still fried rice and I have to say that this was the tastiest version I've cooked at home. ^o^  Of course, the only thing I can't replicate is the wok hei of those fried rice you get at restaurants (coz we just don't cook with such high heat at home).  If I was cooking one without shrimps, I would probably follow Ili's version and include the dried anchovies in the paste for more flavour.

I've never cooked curries from scratch (I do it the cheat way with pre-prepared chilli paste), so I've never pounded blended a chilli paste of any kind in my life (after all, I've always felt that Chinese-made sambals are never quite in the same class as those authentic Malay-made ones, so I've always resorted to eating out if I want to eat these chilli-based dishes).  That's why it has never occurred to me to use a fresh chilli paste in frying my rice before and didn't realise that it was actually so easy to put together.

The freshness the chilli paste brought to the fried rice, you can't quite achieve that with bottled chilli sauce or just soy sauce.

The fried rice isn't spicy at all, so use more chillies in the paste (or more spoonfuls of the paste) if you prefer it spicier.  Better still, use the much hotter bird's eye chillies instead for some real kick.

This Shrimp Fried Rice with Fresh Chilli Paste is comfort food through and through.  And the best thing about cooking fried rice is...you don't need a recipe, it can be whipped up with ease and it also helps you clear out whatever leftover bits and pieces of fresh produce in your fridge.

You can use leftover chicken fillet or minced pork (in this case) and use whatever leftover vegetables you have in the fridge, be it long beans, french beans, carrot, onions, sweetcorn (as it's done here)...anything, even leafy vegetables like choy sum and cabbage.

If you have never tried making fried rice with a freshly blended chilli paste (like me), I urge you to give it a go and you'll forever be thinking why didn't I do that sooner.  I think I'll be blending (and cooking with) a freshly blended chilli paste a lot more often from now on.  Happy blending too...should you choose to try it! ;D

Serves 1 with a healthy appetite or 2 who are exercising portion control