I made the Crispy Rice and Egg Bowl with Ginger-Scallion Vinaigrette on a night when I only had to feed myself. It’s one of those dinners that comes together very easily, and is flexible in that you can just use whatever veggies you have or like. I used carrots and snap peas, as there were some at the farmer’s market that looked good.

Per Deb’s suggestion I made brown rice. I should have paid a little more attention because our brown rice is long grain, and she calls for short grain, which has more starch. This meant that when I crisped it up, it didn’t stick together. It just sort of all got a little dried out, which wasn’t the greatest texture. So make sure you use short grain rice, as that will stick together better and you’ll have rice that is crispy in some spots and soft in others.

I used sherry vinegar for the ginger-scallion vinaigrette, but next time I’ll try rice wine vinegar, as sometimes the sherry felt a little overpowering. I also made a note to scale back the oil in the vinaigrette by about a quarter, as it seemed a little oily to me.

I thought the crispy egg worked really well here. The creaminess from the yolk adds a nice contrast, and the ginger-scallion sauce is really good with the egg. I topped my bowl with a little bit of toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, and some gochugaru. Despite the weird texture of the rice it was still a pretty good dinner.

I had this again the next day but didn’t crisp the rice, I just warmed it up in the microwave. That was good, so if you only have long-grain rice I’d skip the crisping.

Overall this was a good, if light meal. But that makes it a great entry into the lunch rotation since it leaves room for an afternoon snack break! Plus it would be really easy to do the prep on the weekend, and then lunch would come together in just a smidge more time than it takes to fry an egg.