Ever run into a recipe that is so easy and so tasty that you are dazed under its spell, obeying its command to make it again, and again, and again, until two weeks later you blink and say to yourself, “Damn, that was good.”

This recipe is why I bought the big honkin’ bottle of sesame oil.

Perfect for chlily nights when you have some time to cook, but not a lot of time, this sesame-peanut stir fry puts together pantry and freezer ingredients in about half an hour to create a comforting sweet-and-spicy assortment of veggies and rice. I love it for its…well, its heft. Vegetables and rice are so very light that they threaten to float away without something to anchor them down, and in winter that something is chunky peanut butter and luscious, dark sesame oil, anchored by onion, ginger, garlic, and lots of black pepper.

For a truly comforting experience, mix the rice right into the finished stir fry. We’re all at home here. If it’s late, we’re going to scoop some of this into a bowl and curl up on the couch with it, furtively, because we know we’re not supposed to.

And if we’re lucky, we have Babylon 5 in the DVD player, and it’s a Londo episode, with lots of Vir, because who knew Flounder could act?

Sesame Peanut Stir Fry

Recipe inspired by “Szechuan-style lo mein stir fry with broccoli slaw and peanuts” from The PDQ (Pretty Darn Quick) Vegetarian Cookbook: 240 Healthy and Easy No-Prep Recipes for Busy Cooks. I’ll often make this with a bag of mixed frozen vegetables — broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. It’s great with basmati rice and the great part is, you can start the rice when you start cooking the stir fry, and they’ll both be done around the same time. P.S. Sesame peanut stir fry doubles easily to feed a crowd or have extra leftovers.

1 tablespoon canola oil
½ cup chopped onion
1-2 minced garlic cloves
¼ tsp black pepper
16-ounce frozen broccoli, thawed
⅓ cup water
⅓ cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
½ teaspoon ground ginger or 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
½ tablespoon sugar
1 package (approximately 14 ounces) firm or extra-firm tofu, drained and cubed
2 tablespoon chunky peanut butter
1 tablespoon toasted (dark) sesame seed oil
¼ cup unsalted chopped peanuts
cooked rice (I like basmati)

In large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add chopped onion and cook until softened, 3 minutes. Add garlic and black pepper and cook 1 minute.

Increase heat to medium-high and add broccoli. Cook, stirring occasionally, until warmed, 1 to 3 minutes.

Stir in water, soy sauce, ginger and sugar. Add cubed tofu, if using. Bring to a simmer.

Reduce heat to low and add peanut butter and sesame seed oil, stirring to incorporate; cook until heated through.

Serve on basmati rice. Sprinkle chopped peanuts on top.

Hey, look, another super simple recipe that is super yummy.

I know. Fried rice is intended as a leftover-user. Day-old rice? Make fried rice with it! Unfortunately for the rice, fried rice is so good on its own that it gets made a lot on purpose here and never makes it to day-old status.

In fact, I make it so much it seems I’ve begun doing that thing where you tweak. I’d heard of this, where people don’t follow recipes directly and instead, like, change them. How odd.

What finally made this tweak awesome was green onions and sesame oil. Oh, hay (sorry, got horses on the brain), there are green bunching onions in the garden! Look:

The green in this fried rice is the green onion, peas, and broccoli. I always use frozen for the peas and broccoli, though I’m sure fresh would be delicious. Fried rice just doesn’t seem the place to be putting garden fresh peas and broccoli, though, you know what I mean? Fresh broccoli is meant for raw crunching, or light steaming, or broccoli salad. Fresh peas are meant for chomping right out of the pod, or quick cooking with a teeny bit of butter melted in at the end, and maybe some chives. But frozen? Go to town in the grocery’s freezer section. Inexpensive and more nutritious than in the produce department and will keep forever. Well, forever-ish.

umami — what?

The green onions added that umami the fried rice was needing. And I figured out a while back that fried rice must have sesame oil in it. If you don’t drizzle some sesame oil into the mix, it’s going to taste bland, no matter what you do.

And apparently, technically green onions don’t have umami flavor. I don’t care. I’m proclaiming umami to be a generic term for “makes it taste awesomer.”

the fried rice trick

I don’t know the right way to make fried rice. I’m sure there’s some proper method that I’m too lazy to discover.

So here’s the trick I developed:

Start the eggs first. Just crack them into the pan and stir to scramble them. Now keep stirring. Quit complaining; you only need to do this for a minute or two. You’ll find that the eggs cook slowly, but develop this neat creamy texture. Keep stirring the eggs until almost cooked, like THIS close to done.

This is when you’ll dump in the peas, chopped green onion and broccoli. Add salt and pepper. The eggs, being almost done, will cling just a little bit to the vegetables. After stirring that for a little bit, you’ll add the rice, soy sauce, and then sesame oil, but that’s all described in the recipe below.

This method makes the egg, vegetables, and rice cling together a teensy bit, just enough so that it’s not all rolling about completely separately.

Hey, is fried rice even supposed to stick together? Am I doing it wrong?

green fried rice

prep: 10 minutes
to table: 20 minutes (when using cooked rice)
servings: 4
special equipment: rice cooker, if you want

2 cups brown rice, cooked, or 2/3 cup dry brown rice
1 teaspoon canola oil
3 eggs
2 green onions, tops only, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
2 cups broccoli, thawed if using from frozen, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste
sesame seeds, for garnish

If cooking brown rice, prepare according to rice cooker directions, adding 1/2 teaspoon vegetable base to the water, if desired, to add a little flavor to the rice. Have the brown rice cooked and ready to go before beginning the rest of the recipe.

Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Crack the eggs into the skillet, break the yolks, and stir to scramble together. Stir eggs constantly to cook them without letting them set completely.

When eggs are nearly fully cooked, dump in the green onions, peas, and chopped broccoli. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir to coat the vegetables with the eggs, about 30 seconds. Add the cooked brown rice and soy sauce, and stir to mix everything together and finally finish cooking the eggs.

At the very end of cooking time, drizzle about 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and mix in. Remove immediately from heat.

Garnish with sesame seeds, if desired. Serve with soy sauce.