Some days, I just love to curl up on my couch with my eyes glued to a movie or my ears glued to music. Those days I do wish if there was some way to cook food without my direct involvement. Well, there are frozen food options which I am not so keen about. Sometimes, I do cook food in a hurry burry. Even in a hurry burry I make sure to make it delicious as my taste buds and body are so particular about that.

Whenever I make easy dishes and when it tastes great, I get the feeling that food can be always made in an easy yet delicious way. Here is one such dish I made on an extremely lazy day which turned out to be just great.

Sesame Shrimp Salad

Ingredients:

• Vegetable oil- 1 tbsp
• Whole dry Red Chilly- 2 no’s
• Onion, chopped- 1
• Celery, diced- 2 stalk
• Carrot, diced- 1
• Shrimp, deveined small- 30 no’s
• Sambal Oelek- 1/2 tsp
• Soy sauce- 4 tbsp
• Sesame oil- 1 tsp
• Sesame seeds- 1/4 cup
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful

Preparation:

• Clean and devein shrimp, keep aside.
• Place a pan over medium heat and add oil.
• When the oil gets hot, add dry red chilly, saute.
• Add onions and saute for a minute.
• Add the diced celery and carrots, saute for a few minutes.
• Now, add shrimp and cook covered till shrimp gets cooked well, for a few minutes.
• To the cooked shrimp, add sambal oelek and soy sauce, combine well.
• Stir fry the shrimp.
• Add sesame oil and sprinkle sesame seeds over the shrimp.
• Finish it off with chopped cilantro.
• Serve hot along with salad.

The aroma of sesame drives me crazy, whether it’s oil heating up or just seeds roasting on a pan or my sesame scented body oil…

Here is my new obsession: Sesame. I have been drizzling sesame oil to whatever I make.  Sometimes sprinkling a dash of roasted sesame seeds on the dishes. The aroma of sesame oil heating up on a pan or seeds getting roasted is driving me insanely crazy. I will breathe in and in until I can hardly breathe in. Not just food, now even my body oil is sesame scented.

Having said that, my husband wasn’t the least bit surprised when I turned fried rice to Sesame fried rice. If rice, I strongly prefer fried rice. To the fried rice when I drizzled little sesame oil and sprinkled a handful of roasted sesame seeds, this turned out to be sheer ecstasy.

Sesame Fried Rice

Cooking rice in rice cooker:

Ingredients:

• Basmati Rice, washed- 1 1/2 cups
• Water- 2 1/2 cups
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• To the rice cooker bowl, add the washed rice, water and salt.
• Turn on the cook button and let cook.
• When it’s done, remove the rice bowl from the rice cooker and let cool.

Making Sesame fried rice:

Ingredients:

• Sesame oil- 2 tsp
• Green pepper, chopped- 1
• Carrot, finely chopped- 1
• Beans, chopped, frozen or fresh- 1/2 cup
• Peas, frozen- 1/2 cup
• Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Soy sauce- 2-3 tbsp
• Tomato ketchup- 3-4 tbsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful
• Sesame seeds roasted- 1/4 cup
• Salt- if required

Preparation:

• In a non-stick pan roast the sesame seeds until it turns golden brown and keep aside.

• Heat a wide pan or wok over medium heat, add the sesame oil, to this add the veggies and stir fry the veggies until it turns tender and slightly browned.
• To the cooked veggies, add the cooked basmati rice and stir fry.
• Add the ground pepper, soy sauce, tomato ketchup and combine everything well.

• To this add the roasted sesame seeds and give it a stir.

• Finally garnish with cilantro.
• Serve Sesame fried rice with your favorite meat or veggie dish.

Tips:

• If you don’t like too much of sesame flavor in your fried rice, substitute butter for sesame oil and for the mild sesame flavor add roasted sesame seeds.

Sesame fried rice cake presentation:

• Transfer the prepared sesame fried rice back to the rice cooker bowl or any bowl of your choice and gently press the top of the rice layer  with the back of a wooden spoon to make it even.
• Cover the rice bowl with a platter and turn upside down, the sesame fried rice would fall on the platter like a cake with the bowl shape.