Ribeye Cutlets over Pork Fried Rice
current situation: ribeye cutlets on a bed of pork fried rice with soy glaze and thai chilies and peanut garnish
The rice has to be cold and at least a day old. This is not a preference, it is the whole dish. Fresh rice is full of water, it steams in the wok and you get a soft sticky clump. A day in the fridge dries the grains out and they separate and fry.
Everything moves fast once the pan is hot, which means everything has to be cut and sitting in bowls beside the stove before you light it. There is no chopping an onion halfway through.
Steak goes on top, sliced, not stirred in. Pink in the middle — if it went into the wok it would be grey in forty seconds.
- Feeds
- 4
- Hands-on
- 30 minutes
- Rice
- Cold, a day old
- Steak
- On top, sliced
What you need
The rice
- 6 cups cooked long-grain rice, cold, made the day before
- 1 lb pork shoulder or leftover smoked pork, diced small
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup frozen peas and diced carrot
- 4 tbsp neutral oil
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil, off the heat
The steak
- 2 ribeyes, 1 1/2 inches thick
- Coarse salt and plenty of cracked black pepper
- 1 tbsp beef tallow
The soy glaze and the top
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 clove garlic, grated
- 3 Thai chillies, sliced (from my garden)
- 1/2 cup roasted peanuts
- A bunch of chives, chopped
How it goes
1 — Cook the rice a day early and spread it out
Cooked, then spread on a tray to cool and refrigerated uncovered overnight. Spread thin rather than left in a lump — you want every grain dry.
2 — Reduce the soy glaze first
Soy, sugar, vinegar and garlic simmered eight minutes to a syrup. It waits happily; nothing else in this dish does.
3 — Everything cut and beside the stove
Pork diced, onion diced, eggs beaten, peas out of the freezer, rice broken up with your hands. Once the pan is hot there is no time.
4 — Eggs first, out, then the pork
Beaten eggs into hot oil, scrambled in thirty seconds, straight out onto a plate. Then the pork, hard, until it browns at the edges.
5 — Onion, garlic, then the rice in a hot dry pan
Onion three minutes, garlic thirty seconds, then the rice in with more oil and pressed flat against the pan. Leave it twenty seconds before stirring so some of it catches.
pro tip — Break up every clump with your fingers before it goes in. A lump of cold rice in a wok is a lump of warm rice in a bowl.
6 — Soy round the edge of the pan, not into the middle
Poured down the side so it hits hot metal and caramelises on the way in. Peas, pork and egg folded back through. Sesame oil off the heat.
7 — Steak seared separately and rested
Dry, salted, heavily peppered, into smoking tallow. Three minutes a side, pulled at 128°F, rested ten minutes.
8 — Slice over the top, then glaze, chillies, peanuts
Rice spread on the plate, steak sliced across the grain and laid over it, soy glaze spooned on, then Thai chillies, peanuts and chives.
Current situation. The chillies are not a garnish, they are a warning. LFG.