One of our favorite sides in French-Vietnamese cuisine is com do — a beautifully bright red stir-fried tomato rice often served with rotisserie or roasted meats. It’s quick and easy to make, and it’s a great way to use up leftover white rice!
NomCat tip for the ingredients:
1) The Rice: You definitely need the long grain Vietnamese jasmine rice to get the proper texture. The Japanese botan rice (and its equivalents) will be too sticky and sweet. Whichever rice you would use to make fried rice will be perfect. Either cook it in a rice cooker with a bit less water than you would normally use, or use leftover rice from a day or two before so that it will be dry enough to not clump when sitrfrying.
2) The Seasoning: Maggi is maggi-cal! It’s darker in color than soy sauce and has a deeper flavor than just plain saltiness. It’s a critical flavoring agent for making and eating com do. You should be able to find it in any Asian grocery store and even in the “Asian” goods section of chain grocery stores as well. If given the option, spring for the higher priced (and higher quality) variety imported from Germany. It’s worth the extra few dollars. 
For additional info, hop over to our follow-up post!
We mentioned com do in our post about herb roasted rack of lamb.
Maybe they should rename it to com cam (orange rice). By any name, it's a delicious side dish!
Alice
Martin
