Asian Peanut Chicken Fried Rice

I have this set of Asian dishes I've been holding on to for 16 years now.

They're totally impractical- the plates are small, and how often does the average person use Asian soup spoons and cute little dipping sauce bowls?

My guess is almost never.

Yet for 16 years every time I have moved I've dutifully bubble wrapped those babies and found an out of the way kitchen cabinet in which to tuck them for those rare occasions on which they're a practical choice.  They have followed me everywhere.

I always get a little excited when the opportunity to use them presents itself- both because they're fun to use and because I love using them in food photography.  Look back at almost any Asian dish I've written about over the past four years and more often than not you'll see those white dishes with the blue design on them somewhere underneath the food.

They're just fun, you know?

I made this Asian Peanut Chicken Fried Rice the other day, and of course I pulled out my favorite dishes!

Ok, so I have a bit of a story to tell you about this dish.

First of all, it wasn't originally called Asian Peanut Chicken Fried Rice.

In fact, it was actually two separate recipes that I've combined- as you'll see below.

I just couldn't bring myself to write about a recipe called Scrambled Peanut Butter Eggs.

Just reading that name made you a little sick to your stomach, right?  Yeah, me too.

I was looking through new additions to Allrecipes recently when I saw it.

I was horrified.  It sounds positively awful!  So awful in fact that I clicked on the recipe just to see what this horrid concoction entailed.

Eggs.  Peanut butter.  Soy sauce.  Ginger.  Garlic.  Sriracha.

In eggs.

Buuuuut then I started thinking.  I always order my favorite pad thai with extra eggs.  In fact, I love the eggs in that dish so much that when I order online before going to pick up our food I specifically write in that I would like extra eggs- because while they have little boxes to check for all of the other things normal people ask for extra portions of they apparently don't get a lot of requests for extra egg.

They really are perfection, though.  The peanutty Asian goodness goes perfectly with scrambled eggs.

So what if I stopped thinking about how gross these eggs sounded as a breakfast food and started thinking about how great they sounded as a topping for Asian dishes?

Yep, in that context they sound wonderful!

Still an awful name.  Just a terrible name.  That had to go!

So anyway, I made up a batch of chicken fried rice- a super easy dish- and topped it with those peanut butter eggs.

Get out of town.  Seriously amazing.  Even better in leftovers the second day!

So, lesson learned- just changing my perspective on this dish made all the difference.  They went from sounding like someone's bad joke to being an amazing element of our meal.  I will absolutely be making these again the next time I have a reason to break out my Asian dishes!

Asian Peanut Chicken Fried Rice

Modified slightly from Allrecipes.com

Eggs:

4 eggs

2 Tbsp peanut butter

2 tsp minced fresh ginger

2 tsp minced fresh garlic

1/2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp sriracha sauce, or to taste

1. Whisk eggs, peanut butter, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and sriracha sauce together in a small bowl.

2. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pour in egg mixture; cook and stir until scrambled and firm, about 5 minutes.

Fried Rice:

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

2 C cooked white rice, cold (try to use after at least a day in the fridge)

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 C frozen mixed vegetables

1 C cooked, chopped chicken meat

1. Heat oil in skillet; add onion and sauté until soft. Then add rice, soy sauce, pepper, mixed veggies, and chicken.  Stir fry together for about 5 minutes, top with or mix in egg.