When I eat Chinese food, I almost always take home leftovers. The entree, refrigerated and reheated, is usually fine, but the rice always has a gritty, mealy texture quite unlike how it was when freshly boiled or steamed. Why is that? Is there any way to make leftover rice fit to eat?
(And no, I never eat fried rice – because I can’t bear eggs.)
Fried rice doesn’t HAVE to have eggs in it, you know. Just take your rice, dump it in a pan, and fry it up with some sesame oil and soy sauce. Put whatever in it you want. Anyway, just add some water to the rice before cooking (in the microwave or whatever). It should turn out fine. not perfect, but edible.
I recommend:
(I don’t like fried rice either, except for what my SO makes. It’s OK because it doesn’t have much egg. You could probably make it entirely without egg if you wanted.)
Add a little water when you nuke it in the microwave, so it’s moist instead of dry.
Alternately, don’t use a microwave to reheat it; use a steamer (or a pot of boiling water) instead.
Leftover white rice.
Boil it in a little milk with sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and raisins to taste (for rice pudding).
Or boil it in some chicken broth until it becomes mushy (for risotto).
Or put it into a rice cooker (on top of the spreader plate, with some water underneath) and steam it again.
Dump it into a pot of chicken noodle soup and boil it for five minutes.
Bon appétit.
I don’t know how to respond to this without sounding like a terrible snob.
Sorry.
Fry up a bit of minced garlic in oil, throw in the rice, shrimp, char siew and whatever else you have lying around, and then the rice. Stir-fry. Wait till the rice gets dryish, and chuck in an egg or two. Stir a bit, and serve.
Forgot to mention soy sauce. Use soy sauce.
I wish you had snobbed away. Then I could have counter-un-snobbed you with a slam on the undeserved reputation of risotto.
I fourth the suggestion to reheat in microwave, covered (with lid or damp paper towel), with added water. Don’t mess with the “sprinkling”, just give it a good splash. Worst case scenario there is a little watery rice at the bottom of the bowl/plate that get’s mixed in with waterever sauce the main part of the meal has. Add too little and you get the crunchy rice. Bleah.
That is NOT risotto. That’s congee.
I suspect that Larry was going to go on about how pre-cooked Chinese rice can’t possibly, in any way, shape, or form, but used for risotto. Or are you a rabid risotto-hater?
The Japanese actually have a term for left-over rice, and there are many ways of using it.
My own preferences include:[ul][]reheating in the microwave with a bit of water (as redtail23 suggests)[]mixing it with left-over Chinese food prior to reheating[*]making fried rice (as Necros says, only I prefer peanut oil for fried rice unless I’m adding chicken, in which case I use the sesame oil)[/ul]
Sprinkle with water, and (this is key) lay a damp paper towel over it, then toss in the microwave. The damp paper towel helps to steam it some and makes it good.