CATHERINE TIDD
About the Recipe
There are a few things I really like about this recipe:
1. When cooking for one, buying frozen shrimp and frozen peas in bags, using what you need, and then putting the rest back in the freezer for another day is AWESOME. It makes things so easy! You can really portion out what you want.
2. Same thing with the veggie spring rolls pictured below: I buy these at Costco and always have them in my freezer. I almost never get egg rolls from takeout restaurants anymore because I love these so much. And I can just take out a few, pop them in the air fryer, and they are DELISH.
3. This is a great use of leftover rice and - make no mistake about it - it HAS TO BE leftover rice. I tried this with fresh rice one time and it did not come out the same. The leftover rice gets pretty dry, so it fries better.
4. The good news about THAT is that you can always freeze leftover rice in 1 cup portions and pull it out of the freezer whenever you want to make this. Having the rice cooked makes this recipe super fast.
Ingredients
1 cup small uncooked shrimp
1 teaspoon cornstarch
light sprinkle of salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil (divided)
1 beaten egg
1 chopped green onion
1 cup cooked leftover rice
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Preparation
Mix cornstarch, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Toss raw shrimp in cornstarch mixture. Heat skillet on high heat. Once it's hot, add 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil. When oil starts to shimmer, add shrimp and cook on both sides, about 30 seconds. Do not cook all the way through.
Remove shrimp from pan. Add more oil over medium heat. Once hot, add beaten egg. Stir to scramble. Remove egg to a bowl (even the bowl with the shrimp!) before it's completely cooked and still runny.
Add a little more oil over medium high heat. Add the chopped green onion and sauté for about 30 seconds. Add cooked rice and toss it with the green onions. Then pack the rice/onion mixture down to one layer and let it fry in the oil for about 2 minutes. Move the rice around in the pan with a spoon and then let it cook 1 minute more.
Add soy sauce and sesame oil to rice mix and mix around. Then add shrimp, egg, and peas (they can be frozen) and mix. Turn heat off and let sit for a few minutes (this will cook the peas, but still leave them plump - great texture!).
What I'm Reading
I'm actually LISTENING to this audiobook and am thoroughly hooked.
Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly fifty years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth’s legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated “on the basis of sex” to be unconstitutional. In a time when women were fired for becoming pregnant, often could not apply for credit cards or get a mortgage in their own names, Ruth patiently explained her argument. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship.
Dinners with Ruth is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. It is also an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace. At the story’s heart is one, special relationship: Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During the devastating illness and eventual death of Nina’s first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruth’s beloved husband died. They shared not only a love of opera, but also of shopping, as they instinctively understood that clothes were armor for women who wanted to be taken seriously in a workplace dominated by men. During Ruth’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Nina’s house.
Dinners with Ruth also weaves together compelling, personal portraits of other fascinating women and men from Nina’s life, including her cherished NPR colleagues Cokie Roberts and Linda Wertheimer; her beloved husbands; her friendships with multiple Supreme Court Justices, including Lewis Powell, William Brennan, and Antonin Scalia, and Nina’s own family—her father, the legendary violinist Roman Totenberg, and her “best friends,” her sisters. Inspiring and revelatory, Dinners with Ruth is a moving story of the joy and true meaning of friendship.