beet top fried rice

ginger fried rice with beet tops and a fried egg

This is definitely one of those meals you make just to get rid of excess produce, so unless you've got an excessive amount of beet tops in your fridge, I doubt you'll want to replicate this at home. However, it was still damn tasty and fried rice is always easy and delicious.

I've covered fried rice a couple of times before, and aside from the addition of the beet tops, this dish was very similar to its previous incarnations.

I start with minced garlic and ginger, and crisp that up in some hot vegetable oil. Then I sautee whatever mix ins I am using— beet tops in this case, but that could very easily be mushrooms or pork or scrambled egg or even just frizzled scallions, (or leeks, as the Marc Bittman original called for).

In this instance, I kept the garlic and ginger in the pan and added my chopped beet tops, which were dripping wet from just having been washed. I let them get nice and wilty, and then I emptied the pan. I added more vegetable oil, and cooked the leftover rice until it got sticky. A dash of soy sauce, a splash of sesame oil, mixed to combine, and then add back in the greens, garlic and ginger. Topped with a fried egg, it was a typically yummy fried rice. The stems of the beets did start to turn things pink, which was funny and cool, but other than that it was fairly standard.


fried rice with beet tops