Serious Eats: Recipes
Dinner Tonight: Fried Rice with Saffron, Ginger, and Tomatoes (Arroz Frito Aortuguesa)
[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]
Saffron in fried rice? I couldn't help but wonder whether this twenty-year-old recipe from the New York Times had fallen prey to some kind of horrible fusion abomination. But it turns out author Julie Sahni had uncovered a very traditional dish from the Macao region of China. Portuguese traders had introduced saffron and olive oil to the area hundreds of years ago. But how would they work when mixed with traditional Chinese ingredients?
What I loved about this dish was how the little pinch of saffron seems to haunt every bite. It's never the first taste you get. The ginger and onion usually hit first—then the sweetness from the peas. But the saffron sticks around in the back of your mouth, pleading with you to eat more. I must have eaten three-fourths of this recipe because I couldn't tell the voice "no."
Luckily this dish is as easy as the many other fried rice dishes I've written about (such as kimchi fried rice or crab fried rice). This one is all about high heat and cooking in batches. I added a drizzle of soy sauce at the end for a salty kick. I'm not sure that was an authentic addition, but it sure tasted good.