Recipe Review: Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice & Lekue Microwave Rice Cooker Product Review

I love finding new cooking tools that make my life easier. One of the thing my husband loves to eat - but I don't love to cook - is rice. I know it's easy - but I just feel like I can't get it right. 

The folks at Lékué have a ton of great tools for cooking, baking and the kitchen. They were kind enough to send me this microwave rice cooker to try out. So I found a rice-y recipe and went to town. 

It's easy enough to use - there are directions that outline about 10 different types of rice. You measure out your rice, add the right amount of water, put the top on and microwave. 

I found a great recipe for Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice from Strawberry Tsunami (recipe below) and knew I had to make it. My husband loves pineapple, shrimp and rice - it's perfection!

I started with a bag of large raw (frozen) shrimp from Kroger. I thawed it out - these shrimp already had the tails popped off. I'm not near brave enough to devein a shrimp!

The nice thing about this was how bright and colorful the ingredients were! Knowing all that is going in - you know you want to try it!

Once the rice was done - I took it out of the microwave and fluffed it up a bit and then let it sit and cool. The rice was cooked perfectly - I'm anxious to try it out with basmati and see how it does there. But this was perfect - a little sticky - but not overly.

While the rice was cooling - I diced everything up and prepped it for cooking. That seems like a LOT of limes?!

There were a couple of sauces the recipe called for - I went simple and used Fish Sauce and Soy Sauce. Fish sauce doesn't get used often but it's a key ingredient when it's needed.

I sauted the shrimp for a couple of minutes and then squeezed all the limes on the shrimp. Then you saute the diced ingredients and once those are softening then you add the cooked & cooled rice.

Stir and fry for a bit and you're ready to go. 

This is such a light and refreshing dish - the fact that you stir fry it for a few minutes actually balances out the light, fresh zinginess of the pineapple and lime shrimp. This is a great recipe for so many reasons - it's healthy, it's easy, it's zippy (VIP really) and it reheats well! I took the leftovers for lunch the next day and they were great!

Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice (adapted from Strawberry Tsunami)

• 1½ cups uncooked white rice (jasmine)
• 1 TBS oil
• 4 scallions, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 TBS fish sauce
• 3 limes, juiced
• 2 tsp soy sauce, or more to taste
• 1 lbs shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 1½ cups fresh pineapple, cut into small chunks
• 1 bell pepper, chopped into small square pieces
• Salt & pepper

Cook rice (in your awesome rice cooker!) but don’t make the rice too moist and sticky. Then allow rice to cool. For the shrimp, take 1 lb and chop them into chunks.

Cut the pineapple into small chunks and set aside.

In a non-stick pan on high heat, cook shrimp for 2 minutes until almost thoroughly cooked. Season with salt & pepper and the lime juice then set aside.

Heat a wok on high heat, then add oil. Add the scallions and garlic to the wok. Sauté for 1 minute, then add the rice, bell peppers, and pineapple and stir a few times. Add soy sauce and fish sauce, constantly stir, add the shrimp, and cook for another 1-2 minutes.

* Disclosure: Lekue provided me the rice cooker in exchange for a blog post about their product. It's my opinion - it did work great and was easy.