3 cups of boiling water

1 chicken stock cube

3 onions, chopped small

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 carrot, finely diced

4 dried chillies, chopped (roughly one per person)

3-4 (about 300g) chicken breasts, cut into 2cm pieces

1 packet (about 175g) shortcut bacon, thinly sliced crossways
You have two choices when it comes to bacon : streaky or back. In hindsight my decision to go with the streaky variety may have not been the best preference health wise.

200g small cooked peeled prawns
It’s a rather minor detail but should be mentioned that fresh shrimp was used in my dish instead of prawns, as they happened to be already peeled and cleaned which made my prep work all the more easier. It should be noted that despite the connotations of the category, they did not look any different in size and yielded fairly healthy chunks of meat.

1 teaspoon of Ground Coriander

1 teaspoon of Ground Cumin

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

2 eggs, omelette (optional)
Every time I have had this dish it has always included an egg in some form, so, regardless of the overload in protein already present, felt it almost sacrilegious to make it an optional item. It helped that it was not a very complicated or time-consuming addition.

Sliced cucumber (optional)

Tomato (optional)

Vegetable or peanut oil, as required

Salt to taste

Most of what was required I already had in stock in my own kitchen. The ingredients that did require a trip to the supermarket were fairly easy to locate.

Number of stops made for ingredient gathering = 2

The reason for this double up in usual stops is solely due to the fact that Monday, my usual day for cooking, turned out to be a Poya, which in turn meant that meat would not be sold anywhere until the next day. Couple this with the fact that I had wrongly assumed having dried chillies at home and you get a necessity for a second run.

Your butcher will inform you that prawns when weighed are done so with their shells firmly intact, making the quantity you finally receive less than what you actually end up paying for. Shrimp, on the other hand, tend to be already cleaned so just seemed like the better monetary choice.

As I said there is no real variety concerning the bacon options but my choice to go for streaky was made only because I could not figure out the weight of the back bacon package.

DIRECTIONS
Preparation time : 45 minutes (if, like me, you like your carrots very finely sliced be ready to set aside a good 20 minutes for the requisite)

Cooking time : 45 minutes

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil, or mixed butter and oil in a saucepan, add the rice and stir until all grains are coated and transparent.

Crumble the stock cube into the water stirring to dissolve and add that to the rice. Bring to a vigorous boil.

Stir before covering with a lid; turn off the heat and leave to stand for 12 minutes. Then drain, loosen with a fork and leave to cool.

Fry the onion, garlic, carrot and chillies until onions are softened and transparent then put aside.

Using a wok (ideally), heat a generous quantity of oil until it’s just beginning to smoke. Swirl around the wok so the sides are thoroughly coated.
If your choice is bacon of the streaky variety, I’d recommend heating the wok up and tossing this in to cook first. You can then use the oil that tends to drain from that meat to do the rest of your cooking.

If your opting out the bacon, then do limit the amount of oil you use to no more than 1-2 tablespoons, as you will otherwise find that the dish becomes a little too oily to bear. Not only will that texture end up hindering the taste but it is also a little too unhealthy to be enjoyed regularly.

Add the meat (the bacon, chicken and shrimp), soy sauce, cumin, coriander and salt, frying for about five minutes with regular turning.

Add the onion mixture to this and mix well together over the heat until all are cooked through.

Reduce the heat before adding the rice and fry, turning continually for about five minutes.

Make an omelette and break it into the mixture before serving.
I added a splash of milk to the beaten eggs because I like my eggs a bit creamy. You could also sprinkle in a bit of cheese for further flavour.

Alternatively, you could top each serving of rice with a fried egg, as I have seen done in a variety of locations.

Serve with a side dish of tomatoes and cucumber.

A few times this dish has arrived accompanied by prawn crackers, at others with a side-dish of chicken on shish kebabs. How you serve it is really open to your own particular preference.

In spite of not being included on either the ingredient list or direction I would heavily recommend the addition of about 1-2 teaspoons (if not more) of chilli powder during the cooking of this dish. While it was flavoursome enough, there was a small complaint that something seemed to be missing. Conversations soon had it relegated it to our hot-spice accustomed tongues and the slight lack of kick in the dish. However, even with this short-coming, turned out to be deliciously fulfilling feed and a definite repeat offender.