Vietnamese Fried Rice (Eggless)

I have a confession to make. I have neither visited Vietnam any time nor I have eaten at a Vietnamese restaurant. I have been to very few restaurants that are not Indian. I have nothing against other cuisines. But, I am very paranoid when it comes to knowing what is used in cooking something. I used to enjoy eating Chinese food until I realized that most of the vegetarian dishes have Oyster Sauce in them. That brought an end to my Chinese restaurant visits. I went to Thai restaurant couple of times. To be honest, I liked their food very much. This happiness stayed till I read one more book from which, I realized that Thai Red Curry Paste and Green Curry Paste which is used extensively in Thai cooking has Shrimp in it. They use lot of fish sauce too, so that makes it impossible for me to enter another Thai restaurant.

 I bought a book called 'The Essential Asian Cook Book' and it had lot of Chinese, Vietnamese, Singapore, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Indian, Japanese and other Asian cuisines. This rice is inspired by that book, but is not a replica of any recipe in that book. The Vietnamese Fried Rice had scrambled eggs, some kind of meat, fish sauce and lot of other things that I didn't care for. I used the concept and made a simple vegetarian fried rice. To be honest, I am not even sure if this is authentic Vietnamese way of preparing rice at all. But, we all enjoyed it a lot.

Ingredients:
Rice - 1 1/2 cups uncooked. (I used Sona Masoori, you could use Jasmine or long grain rice)
Oil - 4 TBSP
Garlic - 3 pods crushed fine
Ginger - 1/4" piece grated
Red Onion - 1 medium chopped into chunks
Carrots - 2 medium cut fine (I just used the largest blade of my grater and grated)
Red Bell Pepper - 1 medium cut into cubes (discard seeds)
Green Beans - cut into 1/2" long pieces about 1/2 cup
Green Onions - 6 both white and green parts chopped (reserve some green parts chopped for garnish)
Soy Sauce - 3 TBSP
Salt - to taste
Red Chilli flakes - 1 TBSP (You could use hot sauce instead)
Cilantro - Chopped 4 TBSP

Method:
Rinse and cook rice. Spread on a plate to cool so that the grains are separate. Heat Oil in a wok. When hot, add ginger, garlic. Stir for couple of seconds. Add red chilli flakes, red onions, chopped green onions, bell pepper, green beans, carrots. Sprinkle some salt. This rice is made at high heat stirring constantly. So, do not leave the wok unattended. Keep stirring often so that all vegetables are cooked, but are not mushy. When all the vegetables are cooked, add soy sauce and stir. Let it cook for a minute or two. Now, add the rice and mix them together. Keep stirring till all the rice is mixed with vegetables and garnish with reserved green parts of green onions, cilantro and turn off the heat. We ate it as it is, but you could serve with some sweet and sour sauce.

Notes:
You could add some potato chunks or some tofu cubes to this. Green peas would make a very nice addition.

Enjoy!!