Egg fried rice with peas and king prawns

                                                             

I didn't get to cook for us last night. Kids asked if we could go for Chinese food. They love a Chinese buffet. Husband and I are not huge fans, but they don't ask often, so of course we went. I remember how much I liked going out to eat when I was a kid.

Back then in the tiny town were we lived there weren't that many options of different cuisines. We used to go most Sundays for lunch to the same restaurant on top of a cliff with beautiful views to a big lake. Mum and dad had wiener schnitzels or something equally 70s. My older brothers had Frankfurters and fries and I had a mushroom omelette. Not hugely adventurous perhaps, but we were happy with our choices. My younger sister and brother were still on baby food, so they just sat in their baby chairs at the end of the table having no clue and chewing their toys. My brother had a squeaky plastic teddy bear wearing green overalls that he loved and would probably still be hugging and chewing it if it was socially acceptable.

And afterwards dad gave us some change and me and my older brothers ran to the bar to buy some spearmint chewing gum. About 12 years later on many a Saturday night I was standing at the same bar with my older brother and some friends downing Tequila Sunrises, Tom Collinses and Cuba Libres. Happy times, both the mushroom omelette days and the disco nights.

So to Chinese buffet we went. We tried to avoid the pretty horrible Dragon King near where we live. It's always too busy and noisy, but everywhere else we tried either didn't have a buffet, were permanently closed, or just closed at the time, because we were kind of between lunch and dinner. But if you advertise an all day buffet, then you have a buffet all day. A buffet that is closed for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner is not an all day buffet, I had to tell the guy at the Hungry Yeti. I don't think he took my feedback very seriously, there was much too much shoulder shrugging and not enough apologies for my liking.

So after driving around West London for over an hour, we finally ended up at the dreaded Dragon King. It was as bad as we remembered, maybe slightly less busy because we were still quite early. But everything including the drinks was deep fried. I managed to find some non-deep-fried vegetables and rice. The kids loved it at least.

So today I wanted to demonstrate how much nicer and more satisfying a fresh home cooked healthy meal can be. There really is no need to ever deep fry anything, if you ask me. I stuck to the Far Eastern theme and made a soy and honey glazed side of salmon with egg-fried rice and king prawns. Very pretty and colourful. And tasty. I'm not sure if the kids were thinking "OMG, why did I ever eat KFC, I must have been out of my teenage mind" or that they are any less likely to ask for the occasional fast food treat, but my food went down well. We finished the whole 1kg side of salmon and all that was left over was a spoonful of rice.

Egg fried rice with peas and prawns (serves 4)

2 1/2 cups of basmati rice
Oil
2 garlic cloves
4 spring onions
1 cup of peas
3 eggs
Salt
Pepper
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp butter
350g raw king prawns
garlic oil
1/2 lime, zest and juice

In the meanwhile devein the shrimp and season with salt and pepper, drizzle with garlic oil, add the lime zest and juice. Mix and leave to one side.

Wash the rice in a sieve under running water and soak at least 30 minutes in cold water and a sprinkle of salt. Drain and cook in plenty of water until just done. Drain.

Mince the garlic and chop the spring onion. Crack the eggs in a bowl and whisk lightly with a fork.

Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok. Fry the garlic on medium heat for a couple of minutes, add the spring onion, peas and rice. Move the rice to one side and pour in the eggs. Scramble the eggs and just as they start to set mix everything together.

In a separate pan melt the butter. Add the shrimps and fry on medium heat until they turn pink. Add the shrimps to the rice and mix everything together making sure it hot.

Soy, honey and lime glazed salmon (serves 4)

1 kg side of salmon
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp oil
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 lime, zest and juice

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Make sure salmon has no bones. Oil the bottom of an oven dish lightly and place the salmon in the dish. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Don't go overboard with the salt, because the soy sauce adds sals to the dish.

Mix oil, honey, soy and the lime zest and juice. Pour over the fish. Bake for 20-25 minutes until done basting with the juices a couple of times during cooking.