Farmers Market Fried Rice

Farmers markets are dangerous things. I go in all starry-eyed imagining what kinds of gloriously green produce I'll find, and I leave an hour later all starry-eyed at the thought of how suddenly poor I am. Then I get all weak at the knees thinking how on earth I'm going to eat five pounds of vegetables before it all goes bad, let alone how I'm going to get it all home on my bicycle without tomatoes bouncing down SW Yamhill. Then the thought of bruised tomatoes gets me all to whimpering. Not to mention bruised pedestrians. So my wallet and I are going to have to work out some kind of arrangement where I leave it out of the fun and bring  a set amount of dollar bills with me, because otherwise, well, it's going to be me and a variations in the key of beans and rice.

Last Saturday, I found these white beech mushrooms at my favorite forager's stand. I've gotten maitake, chanterelle, morel, and oyster mushrooms from him before, plus fiddlehead ferns (which I have pickled with great success) and sea beans (which are salty like seaweed and crunchy like asparagus tips). Not to mention the black truffles he gave me for free because I was admiring them with such fervor--flattery gets you everywhere, including into your local mycophiles's good graces.

I'm pretty sure these are my new favorite mushrooms: deliciously nutty and delicately snappy, these aren't the umbrella-shaped pieces of rubber that some people claim mushrooms to be. Far from it. They marry incredibly well with a quick stir-fry in miso and butter, or soy sauce and butter, which makes sense since they're native to Japan (where they're known as honshimeji mushrooms). Well, the butter part doesn't follow from that, but this is the part where I stick my fingers in my ears and go "la la la absence of dairy in Japanese cuisine la la la don't care" because mushrooms and butter are two things that will never be divorced in my mind, so you'll have to suffer through my lack of tradition in this particular area. I also frequently, sacrilegiously, substitute chives for scallions. I'm such a rebel.



God, look at those little mushroom babies at the base! And tucked inside the middle! I've honestly never come closer to cooing over produce. Usually I express my enthusiasm by sneaking pieces from my bag into my mouth, like has happened with every pint of sugar snap peas I've ever bought. They're amazing in Portland right now--so plump and sugary and snappy and pea-y, it's like they were named for it. I had to start buying an extra pint simply to feed the inner beast that comes out when I'm roving the aisles of the market, collecting pints of wild shrimp and samples as I go (but not samples of wild shrimp).

I confess to finding sugar snap peas at their shining best when munched on from the seat of a bicycle, soaring down Market Street, but in order to spare myself from a possible bicycle accident, I saved some snap peas for lunch later. Everything except the mango and the rice came from the farmers market or my garden--but let me tell you, if I could transplant a mango tree and twenty square feet of tropical climate to my backyard, I would. Not a rice paddy, though.

I confess, also, that there are actually no mushrooms in this particular stir-fry--I used them all up to accompany a plate of bindaetteok (or, less attractively, Korean mung bean fritters), which, come to think of it, wasn't an entirely traditional pairing, either. Neither is this one, really, since I used both chives (instead of scallions) and forbidden rice (instead of jasmine rice).

Forbidden Fried Rice, Thai Style
serves two, or one for two meals


There are two keys to good stir-frying: prepping everything to a size that'll cook at the same rate, and having all of those ingredients prepped and within arm's reach before the oil even hits the pan. Once the oil's hot, things move pretty snappy (like them peas).

~2 tbsp coconut oil (peanut or vegetable also works, but save your olive oil for another day; the smoke point is too low)
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced or chopped (according to preference)
½ yellow onion, in ½-inch dice
1 tbsp nam prik pao (optional but highly recommended)
1 cup sugar snap peas, leafy ends snapped off and sliced width-wise into ½-inch chunks
1 cup shrimp, peeled and de-veined
1 cup mango ½-inch chunks (I used frozen chunks, but if you're going fresh and are looking for a new way to peel mangos, here's an excellent tutorial)
2 cups cooked forbidden or black rice
1 tbsp fish sauce

1. Heat a generous dab/splash of oil in a large pan or wok. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and cook until golden, about a minute. Add the onion and cook another 3-5 minutes, until nearly translucent.
2. Add the sugar snap peas, shrimp, and nam prik pao if using. Cook until the shrimp is nearly cooked through (should be bright pink).
3. Add the mango and rice, followed by the fish sauce, and stir until everything is heated through and the seasoning is distributed.
4. Garnish with sprigs of Vietnamese cilantro, chives, and a squeeze of lime.