Pesto Fried Brown Rice with Mushroom and Broccoli

I am about to throw you a curve ball with this recipe, it's one of the most common dishes in Asian cuisine but with an European twist, or you could say, it's one of the most known flavours in Europe with an Asian twist, either way, I would just call it an European Asian fusion recipe. 

Today I'm sharing with you this pesto fried brown rice with mushrooms and broccoli recipe that will give you the best of two worlds. Also, it's one of those recipes that even though it's crazy easy to make it has a gourmet feeling to it that will keep you hooked.

Lately, I've been obsessing over pesto sauce a bit too much but I just love the fact that you can put a bunch fresh ingredients in a food processor and have a masterpiece ready in a few seconds. Last week, in the midst of this obsession I went a bit overboard with it and made way too much, I didn't want it to go to waste so I had to get creative to put it to a good use. 

Pesto sauce has that kind of flavour that can easily enhance many other ingredients and it can turn a simple meal into something special. With this in mind I decided to use ingredients I don't normally combine with pesto to make something different and I was immensely happy of how everything turned out. 

With just a bunch of ingredients this pesto fried rice underlines the nutty taste of the mushrooms combined with the walnuts, the different flavours balance each other out and you have a creamy texture given by the walnuts blended with the basil and olive oil.  

Don't be tempted to buy pre made pesto from the store! Using fresh ingredients and making everything from scratch is so much better than buying prepackaged stuff, and this recipe allows you to do just that without it being too much of a hassle. You can find every ingredient you'll need at your local market; I personally like going to the farmers market over the weekend to get organic ingredients grown locally to make sure my food will be as fresh as possible.

Back to the recipe now.

There's a few things we'll need to have ready but they're all quite simple; cook the rice, boil the broccoli and make the pesto, if you can manage, you can always multitask at this stage and have all three things happen at the same time. Usually, I have to chase my son around the house while cooking so multitasking doesn't really go that well. 

The rest is super quick and it's where we go back to the basics of Asian cuisine, making the fried rice. Just fry all the veggies in a pan, add the rice and the pesto and stir fry for a few minutes, make sure you mix in the sauce very well and if you can, I recommend to make a big batch, everyone will be asking for seconds!