Hmmm.... fried rice

Weekends means complete shutdown of my system ... I usually don’t do much ... just lie down on my ass and do absolutely nothing. Like most weekend, I was just lying ... watching the telly ... eating ... and yeah you guess it correctly ... doing nothing good. In the evening, I asked mom what is she planning to make for dinner. She told me that she is going to use the leftover white rice (that she made for lunch) and will make me some fried rice. Nice ... I like fried rice ... well I like anything rice. Suddenly, I got up and told her that I would help her to get the dinner ready. She was pleasantly surprised ... partly because I simply am the laziest person in the world when it comes to do house chores ... and partly because I don’t know anything about cooking. The only thing that I can make is tea ... and can make it very well ... thank you very much. Apart from it, I can’t cook to save my life. Being a foodie ... sometimes I feel ashamed of my cooking handicap. And I am a really fussy eater too ... I can’t eat everything and everyplace. Sometimes I can really be a nightmare when it comes to food. I have decided to learn cooking ... but I never really made any effort to learn it. Today when mom told me about fried rice ... I asked her how hard it is to make it and she told me that its really easy ... so I though what the heck ... why not start learning ... the easy way.

Like she told me ... cooking fried rice turned out to be easy ... and quick too. I started with heating three-four teaspoon of soybean oil in a कड़ाही (wok) and add राई (mustard seeds) and जीरा (cumin seeds), one teaspoon each. Add a small bowl of कटे हुए प्याज (chopped onions) and हरे मटर (green peas). You can also add शिमला मिर्च (capsicum) and/or गाजर (carrots) ... anything that goes well with rice. Now add some हल्दी (turmeric), लाल मिर्च (red chilly powder), and some नमक (salt), as per your taste (I added one teaspoon each). Heat everything well for about 5 minutes (or till the onions gets little brownish texture). Now add the leftover चावल (white rice), add some नींबू का रस (lemon juice) and धनिया पत्ती (parsley) ... mix everything well.

Voila !!! Nice ... healthy ... light and awesomely tasty fried rice is ready to be gulped ... yummy. You can eat it with पापड (popadum) ... like most Marwaris do. We had enough rice to make a dinner for 3 out of the leftovers ... it tasted great and mom didn’t had to slog for hours too. Nice, easy and quick ... mission accomplished. Now that I know that cooking can be fun and not so hard ... I think I will learn few more dishes.