Fried Sweet Rice with Sausages and Mushrooms | Wok Wednesdays

This fried sweet rice with sausages and mushrooms was so easy to make and totally tasty. The ingredient list isn't that complicated, with the Chinese sausage being the most difficult to find item.

I actually had Chinese sausages in the freezer leftover from making these beans from Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young, the book that inspired Wok Wednesdays. These sausages look like skinny salamis and are sold in Asian markets. Unlike salami, they must be cooked through before eating them.

In the Asian market, they are usually in packages in the refrigerator section. They are sometimes called Chinese style sausage, lap cheong, or lap chong. Read the label and look for pork in the ingredients. If you can't find any, you could substitute a dry salami for a somewhat similar flavor.

Speaking of substitutions... full disclosure time. The recipe calls for sushi rice, so without reading the recipe all the way through, I bought some fully cooked takeout to save time. I later realized I needed to cook the rice in chicken broth... a day in advance. Alrighty then. I really need to read recipe instructions. I ended up using white basmati rice, which I had on hand. Basmati rice has a somewhat nutty flavor. It absorbs a lot of liquid while cooking, so I added another 1/2 C of chicken stock to compensate. Here is a description of the difference between the two.

The recipe also calls for dried shiitake mushrooms, however I used fresh ones instead. Other than those two substitutions, I followed the recipe as written. Besides the rice, chicken broth, Chinese sausage, and shiitake mushrooms, the recipe also calls for minced ginger, scallions, soy sauce, and salt and pepper. This is all stir-fried in just two tablespoons of oil. That's it. Just remember to make the rice a day in advance and read the recipe all of the way through. Sheepish grin.

We loved this dish. I can't wait to try it with the correct rice =)

This recipe is from Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young, the essential source for all things stir-fry. It is such an excellent reference regarding Asian ingredients. I have been guilty of carrying the book into my Asian market to compare the photos in the book with the items on the shelves.

To see what the dish looks like made with sweet rice, and to get the recipe, visit Grace Young's post here.