Healthy Chicken Fried Rice

• Yield:3 servings
• Difficulty:Easy
• Time:30 minutes

Although New York is famous for its pizza, it also has one unsung treasure you miss very much when you move away: Chinese food! It’s a way of life in New York. In fact, many locals eat Chinese food at least once a week. One of the staples on the menus of the ‘hole in the wall’ Chinese food restaurants (those are the very best!) is something that isn’t famous for being healthy: fried rice. Well, I’m about to attempt the near impossible: to make fried rice healthy…Yes, it CAN be done!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of pre-cooked or left over brown rice, preferably if it’s somewhat dried out. If you have to cook it right beforehand, cook it with slightly less water.
• Chinese soy sauce (Chinese soy sauce has a different flavor than US or Japanese soy sauce)
• 12 ounces of chicken breast cut into small pieces
• Olive oil (I used 3 tablespoons)
• Nonstick spray
• 1 egg, 2 egg whites
• 1 cup Mung bean sprouts (you can use any veggies you want)
• A wok
• Black pepper

Directions:

I used a $5 nonstick wok and was pleasantly surprised at the results. Spray the wok with nonstick spray first, as it seems to help spread the oil thinner so you need to use less. People say olive oil has a relatively low smoking point; I did not find that it smoked at all, even with my gas stove on high heat. Put the wok on the stove on high heat. Once the wok is hot, put the olive oil in and swirl it around so it gives good coverage. When the wok is as screaming hot as it can get, add the chicken breast and a tablespoon of soy sauce with the black pepper. (Try not to disturb it too much.)

Contact with the wok on high heat is the key. Once it looks brown enough on one side, flip it and wait until it looks almost done, not overdone. Feel free to check a piece or two just to be sure.

Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl. Whisk the egg and egg whites in a bowl, adding black pepper. Now pour the eggs into the wok. Cook about a minute until it browns, then flip it, and let it cook a minute. Chop it into pieces and set aside with the chicken. Put the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil in the wok and swirl around, and then add the rice in a thin layer. Let it sit a minute or two, not disturbing it (again, contact with the heat of the wok is the key here). When you can smell the rice, add all of the ingredients you just cooked, plus the bean sprouts. Also, add some more soy sauce by sprinkling it on the sides of the wok and letting it slide into the center. Toss around the mixture, let it sit a minute, then toss it again.

This process may sound very involved, but, because of the high heat, it actually moves very quickly! (It only took me about ten minutes to cook everything.)

Nutrition: