Former lawyer, current cook, TV host and author Adam Liaw is a clever thinker – and lucky for us, he’s applied his most recent clever thoughts to getting dinner on the table in a timely fashion. The result is his latest cookbook, Time for Dinner, a collection of more than 80 recipes designed to cut down on cooking, chopping and washing-up time – think traybakes, one-pot wonders and simple pasta dishes.
Take this “carbonara” fried rice – it’s on the table in just 10 minutes, and everything is cooked in one frying pan, so the after-dinner clean-up is minimal. It’s definitely not a traditional way to prep either fried rice or carbonara, but it is certainly charged with plenty of flavour.
“Fried rice is, at its most basic, a combination of egg, oil and rice,” writes Liaw. “Here, the addition of a bit of ham, parmesan and black pepper takes it in an unconventional direction, but truth be told there’s very little ‘carbonara’ about this simple fried rice. I’ve mainly called it that to annoy the carbonarinieri (Italian food police).”
While this dish goes hard on the ham, rice and cheese, you can add a little veg if you like. “If you want to add some greenery, a handful of frozen peas or some finely sliced spring onion would be excellent choices,” writes Liaw.
Adam Liaw’s “carbonara” fried rice
Serves 2
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
½ cup (80g) diced ham
25g butter
4 eggs, beaten
Salt and black pepper, to season
3 cups (555g) cooked rice
¼ cup (25g) freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus extra to serve
Method
Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat and add the oil and the ham. Fry the ham until it just starts to brown, then add the butter and allow it to melt. Add the egg and, as it cooks, push the edge of the egg in a few times towards the centre of the pan. Season with a little salt and when the eggs are nearly set, add the rice, season very well with salt and mix well. Fry for a few minutes until the rice is lightly toasted, then scatter in the parmesan and mix. Grind over plenty of black pepper and scatter with extra parmesan to serve.
This is an edited extract from Time for Dinner by Adam Liaw published by Hardie Grant Books, out October 1, 2024.
