I'm very happy to take over the reins of an old recurring feature over on Gals Guide, and that is food. More specifically, food that works well when you've got friends over to watch the fights. Anyone can order pizza and wings, but if you want people to turn to you and say (and I quote) "Yo, that is f*&@ing phenomenal. I don't care if we do this at my place next time, but you need to make that again", here's some tips on how to make great food that specifically work well for large groups of people.

This isn't a Beef Wellington or Baked Alaska I'm talking about here, but food for stereotypical 18-39 year olds that isn't terribly labor intensive. Burgers and wings will come at some point in this segment, but for now, what I'm going to work with is something you can use as either the entire meal, or more likely as part of the whole. Let's say it's you and five other people. You could just be straight carnivores and scarf down wings and chicken fingers, but most people tend to like a slightly more balanced meal, and bacon grease aside, this is both healthy and a lighter grain to go with what will most likely be the main focus: some big-ass meat dish.

In fact, fried rice can obviously be made with everything, not just the ingredients I'm putting forth for you now. The only general rules to fried rice are: have a hot pan or wok, and use day-old or later rice. The first is well, kind of blindingly obvious. You ain't gonna make fried rice in an oven, duh. The rice is a bit more detailed. If you use fresh cooked rice, and then put it on hot metal with other liquids, it tends to overcook and get mushy. You can try to undercook your rice to that point where the few minutes it'll spend in the pan/wok will be the last bit of cooking, but that's really tricky to time and probably not worth the effort. Rice is one of those things that keeps well in the fridge or even just covered at room temperature.

Fried rice is also one of those really versatile dishes that can come out fine using completely separate sets of ingredients. I could probably make 4 or 5 different versions and the only common ingredient would be (duh) rice. Here's one of the simplest ones I have in my pocket. The only implements you'll need are a knife, cutting board, pan or wok (I used a pan) and a spoon.

Want to find out how to make this? Make with the clicky!