How to Make Seafood Fried Rice

By an advocate for arm-chair cooking with a caveat (I might not be able to reproduce the same dish the next time.) 

I always like to start Chinese cooking with a whole spoonful of garlic. As you know, I do not cut or mince garlic. I’m glad someone thought of the idea of bottling up minced garlic in a jar and selling it with a profit. Naturally it is double the price of fresh garlic but saves your hands and palms from smelling like you are a vampire vanquisher!

I have a very sensitive nose and sense of smell (among my idiosyncrasies; for better or worse – I can sneeze my way into the Guinness Book of Records I believe) so I try to minimise pungent smells when I can. This is also due to the fact that we have a small kitchen on which the exhaust right on top of the stove has not been working for years. Which reminds me it is about time to do something concrete about it…instead of giving excuses like this!

Since the minced garlic is in water in the jar, it crackles and tosses like nobody’s business with sound effect and all for entertainment. For me I will always reprise my role of standing as far away as possible while lengthening my arms; with both hands gripping the wooden ladles tightly. Trying to stir up the already pulsating storm of garlic with olive oil.

Lately I have taken to olive oil again since my Asian Wok Oil has finished and I have always forgotten to buy new supplies every time I go to the grocery store!

I believe that in order to give the seafood a garlicky smell, I have to stir-fry the seafood with garlic even before the garlic turns golden brown. So I mix in my medley of small prawns, mussels, oysters and squid inside. While stir-frying I add in tartar sauce. I had a craving for tartar flavoured seafood rice. 

Then I add in some mixed vegetables to the medley. I also add in some rucola leaves to give it a minty taste. I like rucola leaves raw and I wondered how it would taste like if I were to stir-fry it. I later found out through that once you stir-fry rucola leaves, the minty taste is gone. I don’t know if the strong tartar sauce seafood contributed to it.

Lastly I add in my fried rice with luncheon meat. Then I fry with tender, loving care. I believe if you cook your food with love, it will taste lovely. That is why Gordon Ramsey’s contestants who cook with fear and anger, make below the par food which makes Gordon even angrier! A vicious cycle. I read somewhere also that his chain of restaurants are on the verge of bankruptcy so he had to rely on his reality cooking show.

Finally I am free to eat. Life is beautiful with food!