Egg fried rice, Indian style

The word "sundry", meaning "odds and sods", is an odd one because it's almost an obsolete word. In fact, pretty much the only time you really see it is at the back of a menu at an Indian restaurant where it categorises all the accompaniments for your curry, like rice or bread. Ironically, the only thing that appeared in this section (at least, until banned by the EU in 1997) that actually was sundried was Bombay duck. It's fairly common knowledge that it's not actually duck but is in fact dried fish. I can only assume it gets its name because it tastes fucking foul. Even the city of Bombay is no longer known by that name since it officially became Mumbai in 1995 in order to separate the city from it's past as part of the British Raj. Perhaps there's a connection, though if I was pissed off at the imperialistic nature of my former colonial masters, I'd send them even more of that fishy shit for pissed British people to order in the curry house after a skinful and leave them with a taste in their mouth making them worry that they had fellated a dead squid the previous night when they wake the next day.

Bombay Duck

Looking at that picture you'd not know whether to smoke it, put it on your garden or flush it down the toilet

Chinese restaurants in the UK generally do egg fried rice to go with their dishes. You can get boiled rice too (as well as chips, though I've already given my opinion on having chips with Oriental food in another blog) but the combination of rice with egg is actually pretty good and works just as well with a curry if you add a bit of spice. This dish is pretty quick to make as well which is always an advantage and it's less fannying around than making a pilau (like this one, for example). It's also vegetarian.

INGREDIENTS
1 mug basmati rice
good pinch of salt
1/2 a small to medium sized onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp tumeric

RECIPE
Rinse the rice by placing it in a pan full of water, giving it a swirl then draining it. Do this a couple of times more  to remove excess starch from the grains. Finally drain it off into a sieve. Cook it according to the method used in my previous recipe for pilau rice by adding just less than one and a half times the volume of water as the amount of rice you're using (in this case one and a half mugs). Bring quickly to the boil, turn the heat right down and cover for twenty minutes, until the water is absorbed. You should be left with soft, fluffy rice with long basmati grains.

When the rice is ready, heat the oil in a frying pan or wok and add the spice for about half a minute then add the onion and garlic, stirring constantly. Slowly fry until soft. Crack the egg into the onion mix and stir it as it sets. When it's almost cooked, pour in the rice and stir gently to mix everything together without breaking up the rice grains. You should end up with nicely golden, fluffy rice that goes well with any curry.

Indian egg-fried rice
Not the most interesting picture but it has a pleasant colour

NOTES
I already mentioned that the best way to get decent rice is to buy a huge, fuck off bag from a local Asian grocers.

I have to give a mention to my local Asian supermarket, Mullaco in Dewsbury, where a 5kg bag of basmati rice costs less than £8. I realise it's a bit parochial to plug a local shop in a blog that may be read anywhere in the world, but it's that good.

In my introduction I mentioned fellating a dead squid to describe the sort of post-binge-drinking mouth-feel you would likely experience after eating Bombay duck the night before, and even I have to admit this is a ridiculous image to conjure. However, I'm lead to believe that this cephalopod-based act is actually the second part of the initiation ritual allegedly participated in by our Prime Minister when he was at university, the one that follows on from the activity widely reported to have involved sticking his todger in the mouth of a pig. Or not.

Bombay duck picture from http://www.bombay-duck.co.uk/