So I tried the recipe for fried rice in The Joy of Cooking yesterday. With some alterations:
Some for the worse:
The rice was still a bit warm, not cold like they said
I didn’t have scallions, so I threw in some onion powder
I used powdered ginger instead of fresh
Some for the better:
I used sesame oil instead of vegetable oil
Added some stirfry vegetable mix
It was edible, but tasted nothing like the fried rice I’m used to from restaurants. It just tasted like rice with vegetables, egg, and some spices. It was still white, not the yellow-brown color of fried rice, and not the same texture either.
When I make fried rice, the brown color comes from the soy sauce I add.
Also: onion POWDER??? Look, if you haven’t got green onions [freeberg]some people call 'em scallions, but they’re really green onions[/freeberg], plain old white, brown or yellow onions will do in a pinch (I’d be hesitant to try red onions), but union POWDER is just wrong.
As is powdered ginger. Sheesh, no wonder it didn’t taste like the fried rice at the Chinese restaurant.
The rice absolutely has to be cold. Otherwise, it gets mushy when you stir-fry it. I’m in agreement on the onion/ginger issue. Powder doesn’t cut it. And the soy sauce makes it brown (although mine never comes out quite as brown as in the restaurant.) In my experience, the fried rice in better quality Chinese restaurants isn’t brown either.
I usually stir-fry the rice in canola oil, then just sprinkle toasted sesame oil over the top as a garnish. I also scramble an egg in the center of the wok, then mix it into the rice. Yum. Frozen peas and chopped ham are always good, as well. I actually made it Sunday night with chopped leftover Hickory Farms beef stick. It was great.
Oooh, some chopped cilantro on top at the end is most excellent as well.
I know, I know… I figured I’d get reamed for the powdered onion and ginger, but I had a bizarrely sudden fired rice craving and didn’t feel like going to the store or the restaurant. I was caught completely onionless, and since I’m not a big ginger fan, I never buy it fresh, but I keep the powder around for recipes and it’s usually fine.
I’ve become enough of a good cook that I’m not afraid to improvise, but not good enough to know when I should be afraid to improvise.
the recipe was very simple… too simple I think. I don’t remember all the proportions offhand, but it was:
Fry 4 eggs (w/ 1/2tsp salt) in 1 Tbsp of veg. oil, set aside.
Heat 2 Tbsp of veg. oil in skillet, add 1 tsp minced ginger , and 3-4 cups cold cooked rice. Fry for 3 minutes, add eggs and some scallions. Add vegetables if desired. Mix, and serve immediately.
I did add soy sauce as a condiment after I was done because there just wasn’t any flavor without it. Should I have added it while cooking?
Oh, and I don’t have a wok. (We’ll be registering for one.) But the recipe said a skillet was ok. (I know, trusting a generic cookbook for ethnic food is probably a mistake to begin with.)
I guess I went with pure sesame oil because the recipe looked so plain, and I wanted SOME flavor. (I also tossed in some sesame seeds, I forgot to mention that.)
So basically… it seems the shorter question would’ve been “What did I do right?” Not much. Ah well, live and learn. Thanks for the advice.
The thing about fried rice is that it’s not really a single dish. It’s more like cassarole; there’s as many ways to do it as there are people who make it so there aren’t any absolute “This is the way fried rice is made!” rules. However, to help you out with what I know…
Soy sauce is what provides that color. I typically put in about half a cup as I’m cooking. A quarter cup with the initial ingrediants and a quarter cup when I put the rice in.
If you’re using long grain rice (the usual white rice you get in stores) you’re usually better off letting it be warm than letting it harden. While the rice will soften again while you cook it I find that often there are still hard bits. The short grain rices you really should let cool down all the way or it will become mushy as Morgainelf said (they tend to fall apart when over cooked more than the long grain rices, but they also stick together which is why they’re used for sushi).
For a stir fry fresh ginger is better; powdered ginger I find more useful for baking and sauces. It can work if you’re cooking some kind of meat with it but it’s not for everything.
I happen to like sesame oil for my fried rice since I like the nutty taste it adds, but peanut oil is flavorless is you want to go that way.
Well, when I cook in the wok, the rule I try to follow during the cooking process is “keep the food moving.” If you can manage this in a skillet without having food flying all over the stove, then a skillet should be fine. If I didn’t have a wok on hand, I’d probably go with a dutch oven or some similarly high-sided pot, but that’s just me and my limited motor-control skills.
And yes, I do add the shoyu during the stir-frying process.
Flavor-wise, sesame oil was probably a good choice. I tend to be a little timid with it, as a little bit of the flavor goes a long way, and I would have been afraid that a small enough addition of sesame oil would not be enough oil to fry 3-4 cups of rice, so I’d have used regular Wesson oil and added a dash of sesame for flavor. Once again, it’s a matter of personal preference. You probably don’t have a six year-old picky eater who needs to be accommodated.
Sesame seeds are always a sign of good taste and breeding.
3 cups sticky rice, cooked and refrigerated overnight
shoyu (~ 1/4 c., or what your taste prefers)
2 eggs, scrambled
1 cup diced Spam, bacon, or Portuguese sausage, browned
1 small can of peas and carrots, drained
chopped green onions
dash of pepper
minced garlic and ginger (optional)
Saute the meats in the minced garlic and ginger. Don’t drain the oil. Add your cold rice in gradually, smooshing out the clumps. Add shoyu, veggies, and egg. Taste, season as desired. For a breakfast fried rice, just skip the veggies.
I love and miss good Chinese food, but find that some fried rice recipes can be too oily for me. It’s why I like this version-- no oils are added. The meats provide all the grease. Also, you can make this in about 20 minutes.
So I’ve got a dumb question: whenever I made fried rice in college, it came out passable for college student food but always tasted really off. I managed to narrow it down to the fact that I always used English peas, since I love them (they’re God’s candy) and I always had at least 2 cans handy. But I’m assuming that there’s some other variety of pea that’s not as sweet and is used in Chinese cooking – what are those? Snow peas? Which kind is in your standard peas-and-carrots cans?
Fried rice was invented as a way of using leftover rice. Never use fresh rice to make fried rice; fresh rice, you eat. To make plain fried rice, all you have to do is to heat (until almost smoking) a little oil in your wok, take your leftover rice from yesterday (or last week), and dump it in. Stir constantly, making sure to break up the clumps. If you want, you can break up the clumps with the back of a spoon before adding the rice to the wok. This is really all that’s necessary, aside from adding maybe minced garlic. When you can get this down, then you’ll be ready to start adding other things: soy sauce, green onion, peas, carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, scrambled eggs, bacon, chorizo, etc. This is like pizza - the rice is a base, use your imagination for the “toppings”.
Get your cooked (leftover, not fresh, rice). Heat wok with a little corn oil. Throw in some sliced onions followed by an egg. Before the egg’s fully cooked, put in the rice and stir it about quickly to prevent it from burning. Add some peas, or mixed veg, or cooked meat. If you want your rice slightly salty, add some soya sauce. I usually like mine a bit sweet and sour so I add ketchup. Stir fry till the egg’s cooked.
If I’m attempting it Thai style, I’ll replace the meat with shrimp and calamari and the peas with bits of pineapple.
I made thai fried rice yesterday and it turned out but I put the uncooked eggs in the wok. I dug a hole and let it cook there and then stirred. But ** Threadkiller** did you make the kimchee or did you buy it. I love kimchee and that would make a good addition to rice. I bought nappa once to make kimchee but it seemed really hard to do.
