Pineapple Fried Rice

I should warn those of you who are looking for genuine Thai food that this Pineapple Fried Rice isn’t especially authentic. This is a recipe I cobbled together from many different sources, and then adapted it to our US Gulf Coast pantries. It’s delicious, though. We would make Pineapple Fried Rice in the shop whenever we had fresh pineapple, and people would come back asking for more.

Pineapple Fried Rice is a fantastic and quick side dish, and will easily be the best, most interesting thing on the dinner table or at any grilling potluck. It will surprise no one that Pineapple Fried Rice and pork are a match made in heaven. BBQ ribs, pulled pork, pork chops, baked ham–all play wonderfully well with it. If you were to order Pineapple Fried Rice in Hawaii where it’s very popular, you may well find it served with Spam–yes, THAT Spam®. (Spam has been beloved in Hawaii since WWII when it arrived on the islands with American service men and women. Just FYI.)

But that’s not all! Pineapple Fried Rice is lovely with roast chicken, grilled chicken, BBQ chicken, garlicky chicken, jerk chicken, teriyaki chicken, or fried chicken from the grocery store or the gas station. Roasted, boiled, grilled or fried shrimp are great with it, and grilled steak, pepper steak, teriyaki beef, Korean beef, drip beef, and beef kebabs are all happy pairings, too. Use your imagination! And if you want to have it as a main dish, you can always add diced ham, shredded chicken, cooked shrimp, or a little leftover roast pork to the skillet.

If you’ve not made fried rice before, there are a couple of things you should know. First, the recipes always call for cold leftover rice. There’s a reason for that:

Unlike freshly cooked rice, which forms soft, mushy clumps when stir-fried, chilled leftover white rice undergoes a process called retrogradation, in which the starch molecules form crystalline structures that make the grains firm enough to withstand the second round of cooking. ~America’s Test Kitchen

In other words, if you don’t want your fried rice to end up in an icky gloppy clump, use leftover rice from the refrigerator because, science. I think I’ve told y’all that I now almost always cook rice in my microwave. That’s what I did for this batch. I made the rice while we ate dinner one evening, put it in the fridge overnight, and made Pineapple Fried Rice the next day. Here’s how to cook rice in your microwave:

1 microwave safe bowl–mine is a heavy 2 qt. ceramic bowl
1 cup raw rice
2 cups water
1 t. salt if you like

Put rice, water and salt in the bowl, do not cover. Cook on high 18 minutes for a 1100 watt microwave. Allow to sit (in the microwave is fine) for 3-5 minutes, remove from microwave, fluff with a fork. This recipe yields 3 cups cooked rice, which is what this recipe of Pineapple Fried Rice calls for. Note: if you still have water in your rice it needs more time. Microwave ovens can be different, and all you can do is check and fiddle with adding time if needed. However, once you figure out the timing for your microwave oven, you’re good until you get a new one.

Also, You should know that a wok isn’t necessary. A skillet will work just as well.

Finally, like most fried rice recipes, Pineapple Fried Rice calls for some distinctly Asian ingredients. This fried rice is mostly Thai-style in that it calls for both fish sauce and oyster sauce, both of which are readily available in large grocery stores, are inexpensive, and both of which I usually have on hand. If you don’t have them, I’ve included instructions for substituting with soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, which you probably do have in your kitchen. You’ll get a bit more of a Caribbean flavor spin on fried rice that way, but heck, Pineapple Fried Rice is popular in the Caribbean, too. (Actually, Thai or not, I like to drizzle a little Pickapeppa Sauce on mine, and it doesn’t get any more Caribbean than that!)

Pineapple Fried Rice makes fine leftovers, and I’ve frozen it successfully. It travels well and is a hit in lunch boxes since it’s tasty at room temperature. And, like so many Asian dishes, Pineapple Fried Rice is a treat eaten straight out of the container in the dark kitchen at midnight, just you, a couple of chopsticks, and the light over the sink.