Thai Style Breakfast: Boiled Rice with Egg Foo Yong

Winter is (sort of) here and people are greeting each other with 'Achoo!' as much as they do 'How are you?' Having survived my first flu of the season only to find that an icky bunch of the virus had merely moved a few centimeters down to set up camp in my bronchial tubes instead. If you think that being sentenced to a week of soft diet would hasten my recovery of my pre-holiday figure, I'm afraid my dear mom's recipe of Thai boiled rice with egg foo yong has seen to it that it doesn't.

Here are the ingredients:
- 2 cups of steamed white rice
- an egg
- 2 tsp of cooking oil
- half a cube of Knor beef stock or a teaspoon of beef stock paste
- 4 Chinese beef balls or half a cup of cooked (stir-fried) grounded beef or turkey or pork (vegetarians can substitute with 2 medium-soft tofu), diced into small pieces
- a green onion, chopped up and divided in two sets
- fish sauce (can substitute with salt or soy sauce)

Making boiled rice:
1. Boil enough water in a small pot so that when you put in the 2 cups of rice it would be totally submerged by about 1/4 inch.
2. Add the beef stock cube/paste.
3. Add the steamed rice into the boiling liquid and turning the heat down to low-medium. Partially cover the pot and stirring occasionally.
4. When the rice has absorbed enough water so that it is no longer submerged, add the diced up beef balls/grounded meat/tofu and half of the chopped green onion. Keep stirring at low heat and season to taste with fish sauce/salt/soy sauce.

Making egg foo yong:
5. Beat the egg in a mixing bowl with 2 tsp of fish sauce or soy sauce.
6. Put a frying pan on medium-high heat. When pan is hot, add the 2 tsp of cooking oil.
7. When the oil is hot, fry the egg at medium-high heat. Don't mess with it. Just flip side when the top has gelled and the underside is dark yellow and orange.

When everything is done, spoon the boiled rice with meat into a bowl. Cut the egg foo yong into bits or strips and lay them on top of the rice, then garnish with the rest of the chopped green onion... And, voila! A meal of soft, hot, and tasty food to keep you strong against the protest of the various germs that would like to take up residence in your various body parts.

Since this is a rather short post, only one or two photos will show up. If you'd like to see more, here are shots of:
the boiled broth before adding rice, after adding rice, diced Chinese beef balls and green onion, cooked boiled rice, egg foo yong, final product.