Triple Garlic Fried Rice (Filipino Sinangag Recipe)
This Triple Garlic Fried Rice is my extra-garlicky take on classic Filipino sinangag. Made with day-old rice, crispy fried garlic and roasted garlic, it's a simple Filipino breakfast staple packed with savoury garlic flavour.
Ingredients
Roasted Garlic (in the oven)
- 1 pc garlic bulb
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
Fried Garlic
- 2 pcs garlic bulb minced
- 2/3 cup oil
Fried Rice
- 4 cups day-old rice
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tsp knorr liquid seasoning optional
Instructions
Roasting Garlic in the Oven
- Preheat your oven to 400°F.
- Cut off the top of your garlic bulb and place it inside a piece of foil.
- Drizzle it with oil and sprinkle with salt, then close the foil, making sure it is fully sealed at the top.
- Bake it for 35 minutes. Once done, remove it from the oven and let it cool.
Make sure the foil is large enough to cover the entire garlic bulb. This will protect the garlic from burning and allow it to slowly roast.
Frying Garlic
- Mince the garlic cloves from the 2 bulbs, making sure the pieces are roughly the same size.
- Before frying the garlic, make sure to prepare your strainer and a container for the oil.
- In a cold pan, pour in your oil and minced garlic. Cook over medium heat, stirring continuously.
- Your oil will start to bubble slightly as you stir. Once you notice the garlic turning light golden brown, immediately start straining it to separate the oil from the crispy garlic.
- You now have your garlic oil and crispy garlic bits!
I like using a food processor for this. Pulse the garlic cloves to ensure the pieces don’t get too small. It’s also important that they are roughly the same size so they cook evenly.
Important note: I like preparing the strainer and container for the oil before starting to fry my garlic bits because garlic can brown and burn fast, so it’s important to transfer it quickly. This step just makes the process easier.
Garlic is very sensitive to heat and can easily burn. I like using the cold-oil method, where you add the garlic to the oil before turning on the heat, because it helps infuse the garlic flavour into the oil and allows the garlic bits to cook evenly until crispy.
Do not let it reach a dark brown colour, as it will continue to cook even after being removed from the oil. A light golden brown is ideal because, as it rests, it will reach the perfect golden brown hue we love for garlic bits.
Save the garlic oil for frying or cooking anything you want to add a little garlic flavour to! Other than rice, I like using it for frying my eggs.
Fried Rice
- In the same pan, add about 2 tbsp of the garlic oil and heat over medium heat.
- Add in your rice and stir, making sure each grain is coated with the oil. You can also add another 1 tbsp of garlic oil on top.
- Pour in about half of your crispy garlic bits and stir continuously.
- Then squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of the bulb and add them to the rice. You can mash them into the rice and turn them into a paste so the flavour infuses throughout the rice.
- Time to season your rice! Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Enjoy with a sunny-side-up egg and your choice of breakfast protein - just make sure to eat with someone who loves garlic as much as you do because of the garlic breath (worth it, though).
A trick my mom would do with day-old rice is to mush it up so the grains separate. You can only do this with day-old rice because the moisture has dried out, making it less sticky.
You can add more as you stir your fried rice. I like leaving some garlic bits on the side as a garnish.
NOTE: You can also add 1 tbsp of Knorr liquid seasoning to add a little umami!