The Accidental Vegetarian / Fried Rice

For me, the worst type of vegetarian dish is a dish that tries too hard. On the one hand, there's dishes that try too hard to be meaty. You can buy all sorts of rubbish vegetarian 'meat', from 'chicken' and 'ham' schnitzels to 'mince', but potatoes, veg and a veggie schnitzel never quite do the trick for me. Or, on the other side of the spectrum, there's the dishes that try too hard to be vegetarian. They mostly involve pulses and are often a sad shade of grey. They seem to scream: disgusting food is good for you!

The best type of vegetarian food is food that ends up, almost by chance, not to have any meat in it. So, tip the fake schnitzels and grey pulses in the bin and make the following dish.

Ingredients for 6 people
450 g plain white rice
1 stalk of fresh lemongrass
1 stock cube (veg)
half a white cabbage
1 small leek
2 cloves of garlic
1 inch piece of fresh ginger
(sunflower) oil

6 eggs
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar

6 tbsp peanuts

Cook the rice (use the package instructions, but put the lemongrass in with the rice). Finely chop the garlic and ginger. Roughly chop the leek and cabbage. Heat the oil in a wok on medium heat, put in the garlic and ginger and about a minute after, put in the leek and cabbage. Drain the rice (keep the lemon grass in!). Now add the rice to your wok to fry it. Turn down the heat, crumble over the stock cube and put on a lid (or a piece of aluminium foil). Before serving, make sure to fish out the lemongrass stalk.
While the rice is frying, crack your eggs in a small bowl, add the soy sauce and sugar, and whisk. Heat half an inch of oil in a frying pan, add the eggs. Wait until the outer part of the omelette is nice and bubbly, then tip the sides of the omelette inwards so it's folded in three. Flip the omelette, wait another minute then transfer to a plate. Slice into 1-inch pieces.
Add the omelette to the fried rice, sprinkle over the peanuts and serve.

I personally like to serve this dish with a cucumber salad. Just dress some thinly sliced, peeled cucumber in a vinaigrette of olive oil, vinegar, fresh pepper and some sugar.

If someone compliments you for putting up a meat-free dish, smugly smile and say this was your intention all along.