I haven't forgotten about my plan to post some budget meal recipes, I was just busy with NaNoWriMo. So here's the next installment of 4 for $10: fried rice.
What I got for $10 this time:
- 1kg Long Grain Rice -- $2.14
- 1kg Mixed Frozen Vegetables -- $1.59
- 6x X-Lrg Free Range Eggs -- $3.25
- 500g Beef Mince -- $2.40
- Total -- $9.38
I should have gone with just frozen peas, or even a handful of fresh beans and a tin of corn (both of which would have stayed within my budget) instead of the frozen vegetables. The Coles' "new mix" of frozen vegetables simply isn't as well suited to this; maybe the old mix was better? Still it worked, and I have a bunch of frozen vegetables left over. The rest is pretty self-explanatory, though I could have got cage eggs for cheaper, and bacon is more common than beef mince, but the mince was on special.
First put a large pot about half full with water on a high heat, and get an electric frypan going (you could use a wok instead), on a medium or medium-high heat.
Throw the mince into the fry pan and, if you want, a bit of butter (which I had left from the last meal) into the fry pan. Stir this every few minutes while you're going through the rest of the steps.
After that put some rice (I went with about two cups or 300-400g) into the pot of water.
Once the rice starts boiling wildly, cover it with it's lid, and then turn the heat right down or entirely off. It will absorb the water over the next little while, though you'll probably want to give it a stir every now and again. Whenever you open the lid to stir it, double-check that it hasn't boiled or evaporated dry (there may be moisture on the bottom, so stir it a bit first before deciding that it's dry), if it has add some more water and turn the heat on for a while again.
After a while, once your mince is entirely or mostly cooked, it's time to add the eggs. Scrape all the mince up to one end of the fry pan, and then crack the eggs into the other end, and start them cooking. Mix the mince occasionally as you go along to keep it from burning on one side, and stir the eggs around occasionally as well. You could obsess at this point about keeping the eggs and mince separate, or you could just remember that you're going to mix the two in together in a little while anyhow, and not worry. I would recommend the second option, but it's up to you.
Once the eggs are cooked hopefully the rice will be too. You can check it by grabbing out a few grains with a fork or spoon and eating them. If they are crunchy it's not ready yet. If so turn the heat down on the fry pan until you're ready for the next step, and put the rice back onto the heat for a while to finish cooking it.
Once the rice is cooked you can just dump it into the fry pan with the eggs and meat. I wouldn't worry about the moisture unless there's a lot of it, you can simmer a bit away in the fry pan. Add a pile of frozen vegetables (about 300-400 grams) and stir it all together and leave it on the heat for a while to simmer away any water, and heat up the frozen veggies. Once that's done it's ready to serve:
This was plenty of food for three adults and a child, with some left over for lunch the next day. And I ended up with about 600-700 grams each of Rice and Frozen Vegetables left over. It's a little bland without soy sauce, so while I don't normally use it, most other people like it, so you'd probably want to have some available for another dollar or two.
