Brussels Sprout and Ham Fried Rice.

With the goal of making use of some of the leftover Easter ham (admittedly, my Easter is more of a meal than a religious experience… unless the food is exceptionally good), we decided on a dinner of Brussels Sprout and Ham Fried Rice. This was a bit of an East meets West fusion flavored with a touch of mustard and whole mustard seed.

Ingredients for Brussels Sprouts and Ham Fried Rice.

The ingredients are as shown, except for the mustard and freshly-ground black pepper. (You might notice the spring onions are missing their green tops; my partner likes to use the greens in her lunchtime salads, so lately there have been plenty of the white portions available for dinnertime recipes… for flavor, anyway, if not for color.) The rice was prepared in the morning and refrigerated for some hours. The red peppers are some large, spicy variety from our asian grocer. I’d not seen them before but they were sort of like large version of Thai bird chili pepper. (If you know what this larger version is, please let me know! The seeds were hot but not the rest, and not as hot as the typical smaller Thai chili.)

Prepped ingredients for Brussels Sprouts and Ham Fried Rice.

The sauce was what I typically do for fried rice: a combination of soy sauce, water, rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, and something sweet (this time a bit of brown sugar), but this time I also added a couple tablespoons of a coarse brown mustard.

Yellow mustard seed in oil.

The frying started off with yellow mustard seeds in oil.

Fresh Brussels sprouts, sliced carrot, and ginger.

Then the sprouts, carrot and a couple thumbs of ginger (minced)…

Stir frying the Brussels sprouts, carrot, and fresh ginger in mustard seed and oil.

stir-fried in hot pan until they were cooked through and a bit blackened at the edge. I used a bit of the sauce and a bit of water to keep the fond in the pan from burning by sort of deglazing it along the way.

Stir frying the ham, garlic, spring onion, red pepper, and rice.

The rice and ham were stirred in and fried a bit over medium heat, and, lastly, the spring onion, hot peppers, and sauce added.

I served this fried rice accompanied by a glass of Red Rice Ale, an appropriate fusion beer for an asian fusion fried rice!

Brussels Sprout and Ham Fried Rice served accompanied by Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale.

Here is a recipe that inspired us to make this dish (but they forgot the ham!):

• Brussel (sic) Sprout Fried Rice (Post Punk Kitchen)