Vietnamese Shrimp Fried Rice (Com Chien Tom) Recipe

Fried rice is the most common comfort food in Asia. This popular dish could be originated in China and then spread out to Asian region especially Southeast Asia. Nowaday, fried rice in well known in almost every continents. We can find it listed on the menu in many restaurants in the States. What is fried rice ?. Actually fried rice is a stir-fried dish with steamed rice as main ingredients and some additional ingredients such as egg, little bit meat and vegetables.

The best fried rice usually made of leftover plain steamed rice. As one type of home cooked dish, there are countless variants of fried rice. All depend on the ingredients, such as egg fried rice, ham fried rice vegetarian fried rice, chicken fried rice, pork fried rice, etc. But one of my favorite is Vietnamese style of shrimp fried rice or Com Chien Tom. This version of fried rice has unique flavor of fish sauce, garlic and onion with mixed in shrimp. I do not like leftover and fixing fried rice is a great way to use leftover plain steamed rice. I think leftover or refrigerated steamed rice make a better fried rice.

This Vietnamese style fried rice will please your taste bud, yet it's a great dish to entertain your guest. It looks splendid, fancy and expensive but cost very little money. Have a shrimp fried rice for your dinner and you will ask for more.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

4 cup cooked rice

1 egg, lightly beaten

3 tbsp cooking oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 small onion, coarsely minced

1 tsp fish sauce

2 spring onion, coarsely chopped

10 oz medium size shrimps, coarsely chooped

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 tsp black pepper

cilantro for garnishing

• Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok, then pour in beaten egg and make a thin omelet. When the omelete is done, set aside to cool it down. Then slice it thinly.
• In the same wok, heat 2 tbps of oil. Cook onion and garlic until fragrant and light brown. Then add shrimps. Continue stir-fry about 5 minutes. Transfer this mixture to a large bowl.
• Use the same wok to fix the rice. Heat the wok with remaining oil. Add cooked rice and stirring constanly. Then add fish sauce, salt, pepper and shrimps into the wok. Use high heat and stir-fry until rice turns golden brown. Then add the thinly sliced omelete. Transfer to serving plate and garnish with some cilantro sprigs.
• Serve it warm with some pickles or chili sauce. Enjoy.