From Disastrous Fish Dish to Fish Fried Rice

Fish fried rice

After writing about planning your grocery shopping and weekly dishes, last night was one of those nights where I totally failed. I was running late coming home, and I did not prepare or plan what I was going to cook; I just bought my fish and meat, and was wondering what to prepare for dinner. Should I bake? Make curry fish? Steam the food?

I decided to bake, so I laid out the fish and splashed some basic marinade such as sesame oil, black pepper, plus sliced some ginger and added a few splashes of tamari sauce onto the fish. Then I was to bake it for 30 minutes.

At the same time, as I was busy preparing the dish, a phone call came through. It was a call I was expecting, so I took the call while preparing the food at the same time.

It was not a good idea, as I for one am not very good at multi tasking while on the phone. Thus I lost focus and my fish dish ended up being over-baked. It was hard and leathery, and the taste was not great :(. You know the feeling; it was frustrating, upsetting… but it had to be served as that was the dish planned for that night. Luckily, I had another chicken dish for the table, so naturally the fish dish was not popular that night.

I know this fish dish would not be appropriate to serve/heat the next day, so I was wondering what was I going to do with it?

I am not in a habit of throwing out good food, even though it is not well cooked. So I had to come up with creative ideas on how to make use of this dish.

Could I use it to make fish porridge? Or slice it finely (due to its leathery texture from over baking) and stir fry with vegetables? Add it to soup? Blend it and make fish balls?…So this morning, I've decided to cube the fish and use it as part of our breakfast – ‘baked fish’ fried rice! The fish actually tasted like fish balls! It was simple, fast and healthy for breakfast.

Here is my simple quick fried rice recipe:

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp cooking oil
1 clove garlic – finely chopped
Half an onion/purple onion – cubed
3 cups leftover cooked rice – preferably cooked rice from the night before
1-2 cups frozen vegetables
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp of soy sauce
2 Tbsp water (optional)
1 egg

Method:

1. Heat oil, add garlic and onion. Stir fry until aromatic.
2. Add in cubed cooked fish, stir for another 10 seconds.
3. Add in rice, soy sauce and salt, and stir.
4. Add in frozen vegetables, stir fry for another 20 seconds.
5. Add water (only if rice is too dry), otherwise keep stir frying for another 20 seconds; making sure the rice is not stuck on the wok/pan and is mixing well with sauce.
6. Move rice to the side of the pan, and 1 Tbsp oil in the center of the wok and add egg. Break the egg yolk, move the rice from the side of pan/wok to cover the egg for about 10 seconds.
7. Stir for another 10 – 20 seconds to make sure all ingredients are well cooked.
8. Serve hot.

Number of people: 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes

So just because your dish did not turn out as planned, that does not mean you can't use it for something else. Think whether it can be added to another dish. You do not need to throw it away, as it is all good healthy food; it just did not turn out the way you planned, so it does not mean it is a "bad" dish!

I would love to hear from you: what disastrous dish did you cook and how did you save it?

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