Thai Fried Rice With Pineapple And Coconut Milk

Recently, a member of a foodie FB group that I am part of had posted about the way she made Thai-style fried rice and served it in the warmed-up shell of a pineapple. This got me highly intrigued. I am on a Thai-food-cooking spree of late, and this dish seemed to be worthy of adding to my list of kitchen experiments. Thankfully, I had all the ingredients this dish required at hand, and so the experiment was done immediately. I am happy to report that it was highly successful – the Thai fried rice was much loved by everyone at home! I am sure this is going to be a regular fixture on our kitchen tables henceforth. 🙂

Trust me when I say Thai fried rice, cooked this way, turns out absolutely gorgeous. The blend of coconut milk, vegetables, sauces, peanuts, pineapple chunks and paneer that I added to it give the rice a kick of flavour. It is an entire meal in itself, and a flavourful one too. What’s more? Once you have the ingredients assembled, it doesn’t take much time to cook.

I took the basic idea of the fried rice recipe from the said FB group member, and made a few variations of my own. The end result had all of us in the family, thrilled.

No more talking now. I’ll share the recipe, and leave it to you to try it out and figure out for yourselves how lovely it is.

Ingredients (for about 4 servings):

Paste

• A 1-inch long piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, peeled

Grind these into a paste. Keep aside.

Rice

• 1 glass of rice
• 1 glass of thick coconut milk
• Salt, to taste
• 1.5 glasses of water

Wash the rice thoroughly, and drain out the excess water. Cook the rice in pressure cooker with the 1 glass of coconut milk and 1.5 glasses of water. Give it 2 whistles.

Let the rice cool down completely and then fluff it up. Keep aside. (Do not use hot rice to make the fried rice – let it cool down completely before you use it, otherwise you’ll end up with a gooey mess)

Notes: 1. Normally, for plain rice, I use about 3.5 glasses of water for 1 glass of rice. For recipes like fried rice and pulao, I cut down on the water to about 2.5 glasses. Here, I have used 2.5 glasses of liquid in total to cook the rice (1 glass of coconut milk and 1.5 glasses of water).

2. If you want to, you can make the coconut milk at home. I used store-bought coconut milk, of the Dabur brand.

Veggies and paneer

• 2 small cucumbers, peeled and chopped length-wise (you could use zucchini instead, too)
• 1 small capsicum, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 small carrot, peeled and chopped
• 4 green chillies, slit length-wise
• A small piece of cabbage, cut into strips
• About 1/2 cup of ripe pineapple, chopped (ensure that the pineapple is not overly ripe, as the pieces become too messy to handle in that case!)
• 50 g paneer, chopped into cubes (you could use tofu instead, too)
• A small bunch of coriander, finely chopped

Keep the veggies and paneer cut and ready.

Peanuts

• About 1/4 cup of raw peanuts

Dry roast them on a medium flame till they get crisp. Let them cool down completely, and then remove the skins. Grind to a coarse powder for a second in a mixer; just pulse the peanuts in the mixer for a second and do not make a very fine powder. Keep aside.

Other ingredients

• Salt, to taste
• Red chilli powder, to taste
• Sugar, to taste
• 4 tablespoons of Sriracha sauce
• 4 tablespoons of soya sauce
• 2 tablespoons of white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons oil

Keep these ingredients handy and ready to go into the pan, as and when required.

You can omit the sugar, if you don’t want it.

How to make the fried rice:

1. In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat the oil. Saute the onions till they start turning brown.
2. Now, add the ginger-garlic paste, and saute for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the chopped carrots, salt and sugar and red chilli powder to taste, and cook on a low flame till the carrots begins to turn tender. Sprinkle a little water if necessary.
4. Now, add the chopped cabbage and capsicum and saute for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the chopped cucumber (or zucchini) and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the green chillies. Ensure that all the veggies retain their crunch and do not get overly cooked.
6. Add the cooked rice, soya sauce, sugar and salt and red chilli powder to taste, Sriracha sauce, peanut powder, and vinegar. Mix well. Cook on a low flame, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes.Stir very gently, ensuring that you do not break the rice or make it mushy.
7. Add the chopped coriander, paneer, and pineapple. Mix well.
8. On a low flame, let everything cook together for 2-3 more minutes, stirring constantly, gently. That’s it!

I hope you will try this out in your home kitchen. I hope you’ll love it, too, as much as we did. 🙂