Thai Olive Fried Rice (Khao Pad Nahm Liap)

There are as many fried rices as rice-eating cultures, and as many variations as cooks. However, the generic idea remains the same.

Use up old leftover rice so as not to waste it. Fried rice is just one option. The Sicilian arancini is a completely different take on the same idea.

Given a dish based in poverty, and lack of wastage, there is quite a bit of leeway in our choices. It's whatever is in the house really. Eggs if you have them; likewise for sliced onions, ground pork, vegetables, dried shrimp, etc.

So what makes this "Thai" then?

The characteristic Thai ingredients and technique; the detailed thought given to balancing the flavors: sweet, salty, sour, spicy; then the Thai-ification, to invent a word, of ingredients that are clearly not Thai -- salted Chinese olives, dark soy sauce, cilantro. (The Thai are doffing their caps to the Chinese here. Traditional flavoring would've been various forms of basil.)

Of such contradictions are all cuisines made. Shall we proceed?

Ingredients

2 tbsp minced garlic
3-4 Thai green chillies (cut into fine rounds)
4-5 kaffir lime leaves (cut into thin strips)

1 tbsp palm sugar
2 tbsp dark soy sauce (read below!)
2 tbsp nahm pla (fish sauce)

chopped vegetables
salted olives (chopped)

leftover rice
peanut oil

wedge of lime
3-4 cilantro sprigs (finely chopped, stem and all)

Recipe

First off, a few general instructions. The rice which was leftover is probably all dried out. You need to crumble it with your hands. (This is a "Jamie" step.)

Secondly, turn the heat UP. All the freakin' way. You want hot, hot, hot. Hotter if you can. It's all about BTU's, baby!

Hot, hot, hot!!! Eat your heart out, Cure fans.

The palm sugar. Substitute with jaggery or brown sugar but it's just not the same. There's no way to explain this. You will have to experience this for yourselves.

Add the black soy sauce, and the fish sauce and stir it for a bit until the palm sugar dissolves. (Also, a "Jamie" step.)

The "black soy sauce" is not your usual ho-hum. It's actually this sweetish salty concoction (siew dam) that is rather thick and glutinous. If you're missing this, add a 50-50 mixture of palm sugar and regular soy sauce but you're drifting further and further away from the Platonic ideal.

Note the Thai qualities above. You're getting the sweet from the palm sugar and the siew dam, and the salty from the siew dam and the nahm pla. Also the umami from the nahm pla because it's basically heavily salted fermented anchovies (not terribly unlike the ancient Roman garum.)

The green chillies (below) is going to add the spice, and the lime the sour taste.

Thai households don't use salt. They just have little bottles of fish sauce if more salt is needed. Likewise for the heat and sourness -- thin rounds of green chillies in vinegar are a standard condiment.

The mise-en-place. From the top, clockwise: chopped vegetables (carrots, snow peas), the above mixture, minced garlic, green chillies, chopped olives.

It may not be obvious from the picture but the carrots have been sliced diagonally really thin so that they can fry, and not boil.

Heat the peanut oil at a high heat, and fry the garlic. Be very careful not to let the garlic burn.

Incidentally, this first step of frying minced garlic is also very characteristically Thai.

Add the green chillies, and the vegetables (not shown), and fry for quite a while until the vegetables are fried.

The CC forgot to take a picture because he was in a bit of a fluster.

Y'all will cope.

Add the crumbled rice, and the olives (not shown.)

After the rice has fried for a bit, add the sauce very slowly so that it keeps frying. You will need to keep frying the rice for a bit longer after you add this.

This is one of the best examples where both Maillard and caramelization are both taking place.

Serve this with the wedge of lime, and the cilantro mixed in.

For the true purists, you are no more going to get true wok hai with puny BTU-burners than you are going to get an Uruk-hai. However, if you are reasonably talented, you will not just exceedingly satisfactory but even borderline excellent results.

Khao Pad Nahm Liap