Vegetable Stir Fry with Poached Egg

You might think when making fried rice one of the last seasonings you would normally reach for would be one called Everything Bagel Seasoning. But that’s the tricky thing about Everything Bagel- it’s actually good on EVERYTHING, and its bagel potential is just a fun added bonus. The reason it works with our fried rice recipe is because it actually has quite a few ingredients that are mirrored in the recipe itself. Garlic, onion, and sesame seeds all help emphasize the flavors that are already in the rice, and the poppy seeds help to further enhance the nuttiness from the sesame oil. If you wanted a little more savory flavor with depth from some funky umami, Furikake might be the way to go with its seaweed and bonito (fish!) flakes. We used Kecap Manis as a sauce to bind our stir fry together, which we made in-house using some reduced liquid coconut aminos. If you didn’t have that, you could use low sodium soy sauce (we like it better than regular soy sauce just because we like to have a little more control over how much saltiness we taste in our dish), but Kecap Manis is just a touch sweeter and brings out the flavor of the carrots we used.

With fried rice that you might be used to from a Chinese Restaurant, eggs are scrambled and folded in with the veggies themselves, but Chef Jeff decided to take an extra step and poach the egg before serving it on top. Why? One word: YOLK. That glorious, radiant, sunshine-y YOLK! If runny yolks freak you out, you could do what we did with our Bibimbap Bowl and fry an egg up over hard if you want to keep that glorious egg centerpiece, or just stick to cracking one over everything after you add your rice and just cooking and chopping it until everything is set. Before you get all stressed out worrying if there’s any ancient fried rice rules you’re breaking, just know that even the place that most people consider the “Fried Rice Capital” of China have all sorts of variation on the dish.

A few basic stir-frying notes- Our fried rice features only vegetables, but if you did want to add meat (like chicken or beef) you totally could! Just like with our vegetables, you’ll just want to be strategic about when you add them, which is probably at the very beginning. Another note if you plan on cooking meat is you’ll want to be a little more mindful of the oil you’re using- though sesame oil has AMAZING flavor, it has a pretty low smoke point, which means that you’ll probably want to mix it with vegetable or canola oil so that you can cook your protein long enough without it turning smoky or bitter. As far as everything else, Jeff strongly recommends preparing and chopping all of your vegetables before you even turn your stove on- once you get going stir-frying, you’ll want to keep moving everything around in the pan, and you don’t want to run the risk of anything burning. When using a wok, it’s important to remember that the bottom will be the hottest part of the pan, and the sides are slightly cooler. When adding new ingredients, try to add them in the center, and push the vegetables that have already been cooking to the side. Keep stirring, and what do you know, you’re stir-frying!

Another important component of fried rice is, you guessed it, the rice. We used cooked brown basmati short grain rice, which was made the day before. Cooking your rice ahead of time and allowing it to lose some of its moisture will help keep it from becoming soggy and retain its texture better.

Once we plated our rice, eggs, and sliced avocado, we garnished with some fresh chopped scallion for some mild onion flavor and a little crispness, and our Everything Bagel Blend to bring all of our elements together. Avocado was served on the side of our dish to add a nice mellow sweetness and creamy texture when added to a bite.