Tinned luncheon meat has one real trick and this dish is built entirely on it: cut thick, fried hard and left undisturbed, it takes a crust like almost nothing else in a cupboard, crisp outside, soft inside, salty and savoury.
Cube it rather than slicing. More edges, more crust.
- Cook the rice: 150 g with 300 ml water, lid on, lowest heat, 12 minutes, then 10 minutes off the heat still covered. Spread it out on a plate while you do the rest so it stops steaming itself.
- Cube the luncheon meat into roughly 1.5 cm pieces. Hot pan, oil, and lay them out in one layer. Do not move them for three minutes. Then turn and do the other sides. You want deep brown, not pale gold.
- Lift the meat out. In the same fat, garlic and chilli for twenty seconds, then the drained sweetcorn for a minute to catch a little colour.
- Rice in, broken up with the spoon, tossed through the fat for two minutes.
- Meat back in, soy sauce around the edge of the pan rather than over the rice so it sizzles rather than steams.
Cook this to the meal. Rice is the one thing here you should not keep without a fridge, and reheating does not rescue it. See rice, reheating, and cooking without a fridge.
Serves 2.