Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Spanish Fried Rice

     I needed to make some brunch and a check of the larder turned up a couple of versions of microwaveable rice, a small can of mild green chilis, a little bacon and some of the most amazing eggs--

     The eggs rate their own paragraph.  I usually buy the house brand from the local supermarket.  They've nearly always got free range extra-large on the shelf, typically with brown shells, priced within fifty cents of the "factory" white eggs. They've got strong shells and good dark-yellow yolks, signs that the chickens are probably eating a healthy diet.  Tamara's more adventuresome.  She has a knack for arriving when the grocery has run out of their own brand and she's liable to pick up unusual kinds.  She bought the last batch of eggs, which are free-range, cage-free and possibly running their own little chicken civilization somewhere, red in beak and claw, a terror to weeds, bugs and millet.  The "extra large" batch was a little assorted in size, one red-brown and eleven in various shades of blue-green, the latter probably from Araucana chickens or a related breed.  The shells are sturdy and the yolks, well.  About those yolks: They are a deep red-orange, some of the darkest egg yolks I've ever seen.  The eggs scramble up sunset orange instead of sunny yellow, and they taste great.  (By the way, the color of a hen's earlobes often predict what color eggs she will lay, though I don't know how that works for Easter egger chickens.)

     I fried the bacon, set it on paper toweling to drain and poured off the grease before sauteing the already-microwaved Spanish rice and then pushing it to the sides, adding the can of chilis and cooking them down a little before stirring the whole thing together and adding some dried white onion, parsley and cilantro.*  Once I was happy with it, I pushed it back to the sides and scrambled three eggs in the middle over high heat, mixed it all together, turned the heat down and snipped in the bacon.

     I had chopped Havarti cheese on mine.  Tam had hers plain.  It was good stuff.
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* The usual warning applies: If you have never had cilantro, don't experiment in a meal.  Have a taste of the stuff by itself.  It tastes "soapy" to a significant percentage of people and pleasant to most others.  The difference is genetic.  It's not like olives; it's not an acquired taste.  It's either palatable to you or it isn't and that's not going to change.

1 comment:

Mike V said...

"About those yolks: They are a deep red-orange, some of the darkest egg yolks I've ever seen."

Sounds like the eggs my wife has been buying lately. The yolks are so orange it's almost like there is something wrong with them. Very strange. I told my wife that if she started glowing in the dark, we'd know the reason.