Shrimp and Scallop Fried Rice

After making a trip out during a tropical storm for pork fried rice other day I decided I really wanted to make some fresh seafood fried rice. I have yet to find a good shrimp and scallop fried rice at the restaurants near us, but I usually end up burning fried rice when I’ve made it in the past. This time I was determined to do it right.

First chop up everything you want in your rice. I’m putting carrots, peas, onions, a little garlic, green onions and the shrimp & scallops in my rice. You should have somewhat equal amounts, in basically the same size chop. I think everything was between 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup. Here are my carrots, normally I dice them in to little cubes but I decided to try something different. I think they’re pretty

Next you’re going to peel, de-vein, rinse and dry the shrimp. If you have really small shrimp, you can probably leave them whole, but I had medium shrimp so I cut them up in thirds (and sometimes quarters) .. you know .. bite sized pieces. Then rinse and dry the scallops. In case you haven’t cooked scallops before, sometimes they can have a little flap of skin, or a “foot” attached. Just peel it off.

So easy I can do it left handed!

Next get everything near your wok .. once you get started things tend to go pretty fast.

Heat some oil up on high. First in is the onions and garlic .. they help season the oil.

Then I did the rest of the vegetables. At first I was going to cook the seafood, then the veggies .. but I decided to do it this way. I figured it would separate the flavors a bit. I also did everything in batches to make sure all the different foods were cooked right.

Here are the scallops .. try to get their sides to caramelize .. mmmmm.

And the shrimp .. cook until no longer pink.

Now scramble an egg in your pan. When my dad makes fried rice, he usually adds the egg after the rice and everything else is all combined. I freak out that the egg isn’t cooked all the way, so cooking is all by itself gives me peace of mind

Take out the egg, you might want to add a little oil, and throw your rice in. Chopsticks are a great way to break up any lumps. Oh! You want to use day old rice that’s been sitting in your fridge .. fresh rice has too much liquid in it. I used brown rice in an attempt to make this somewhat healthy. I actually think its pretty good, except for all the oil I used.