Recipe Hall of Fame: _ Fried Rice

I'm going to be completely honest with you: until about 3 years ago, I really had no clue what "fried rice" was. Which means that either the dish was never a notable entry on the menu of any of the "Asian" restaurants I grew up eating at, or there is not a consistent German name for it. Since then, however, some variations of fried rice have become regular appearances in my day-to-day meals.

This recipe is probably the most "complicated" one in this series so far, mainly because it involves a bit of technique and prepping a bunch of ingredients. Still, it is fairly quick to make once you're used to it, and pretty cheap too.

The dish

I've titled this post "_ fried rice" because this recipe is really more of a template than something you need to follow to the last ingredient. Fried rice is the kind of dish to which you can basically add anything you've got on hand.

The thing that most people think of when you say fried rice is probably egg fried rice. It may surprise you to learn that I'm actually not a huge fan of egg in fried rice. Or at least, I've come to appreciate the egg-free variants more. What really made me come around is the basis of this recipe: Chinese Cooking Demystified's Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice.

It uses the Chinese trinity of aromatics (spring onion, garlic, ginger) as a basis, a specific Lao Gan Ma variant for the main flavours and then some vegetables. The original also uses bacon cubes but, as it turns out, if you leave those out the dish becomes vegan. If you do want it meat-free but also want to keep some smokiness, you can go with one of the vegan bacon cube replacements that are out there, or a bit of smoked tofu.

Now, the reason I haven't titled this "Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice" is because I've sort of come to the conclusion that you can swap out Lao Gan Ma for other flavourful things, such as Kimchi (Korean fermented napa cabbage) or sumi yacai (Chinese pickled mustard tubers). The fried rice "technique" as well as most of the ingredients are transferrable, in my opinion.

Ingredients

These are mostly copied over from Chinese Cooking Demystified, with some notes and additions.

Base ingredients

• one of the following (flavour base):
  • 2 tablespoons Lao Gan Ma (the original calls for the variant "Chili Oil with Black Bean", which is called "Fermented Soybeans in Chili Oil" where I live)
  • 80g Kimchi (minced)
  • a packet (80g, maybe a bit less) of sumi yacai (minced) – for reference, I use different types of this stuff
• Jasmine rice, 225g
• 1-3 cloves of garlic (minced)
• small piece of ginger (0.5 cm, minced)
• 1-2 spring onions (white parts minced, green parts sliced)
• 2 teaspoons red, fragrant chili powder (I tend to use Korean Gochugaru here)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (roughly)

For the additional ingredients (no need for everything, this is more of a list of things I've tried before):

• 60g (napa) cabbage (the original calls for 40g, but that is an amount too miniscule to me)
• 100g canned kidney beans (rinsed)
• half a block of tofu, cut into small dice
• 3 strips bacon (see original recipe on how to fry), or vegan bacon alternative
• frozen peas (I just eyeball the amount here based on how many peas I want in the end result)
• diced carrot
• mushrooms
• corn

Seasoning (at the end):

• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon MSG
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper powder

In my experience, you can double those quantities to make 2 decent-sized portions but it comes dangerously close to the "overcrowding the pan"-threshold for my big non-stick wok.

Instructions

For the sake of simplicity, I will subdivide the instructions according to the "template steps" of this recipe.

1. Rice

Most people agree that day-old rice is the best for fried rice. Some particularly gate-keepy Internet personalities even go so far as to insist that your fried rice is doomed if the rice is not cooked one day before. Get ready for my outrageous take: it doesn't really matter. Kinda.

What matters, in my opinion, is that the rice is fairly dry and not burning hot. Chinese Cooking Demystified show you how to get there by using a steaming technique to cook the rice. Personally, I'm quite happy with the results I get using my rice cooker, so here's a brief description of what I do:

1. Wash and drain the rice, at least 3 times
2. Add water (same volume as the rice)
3. When done cooking, leave the rice cooker in heating mode for a bit to let more steam escape
4. Turn it off, open the lid, move the rice around to fluff it up
5. Let it cool in the air until you need to use it

The rice doesn't end up soggy and doesn't clump together too much this way. It may be that day-old rice is superior — but having compared both, I honestly can't be bothered to make the effort if I don't already have day-old rice anyway.

2. Ingredient prep

Mince the aromatics (spring onion, garlic, ginger). Cut any other ingredients into small pieces, if appropriate. Before starting with the main cooking part, fry, blanch or defrost any vegetables that need it. I.e. most additional ingredients unless they come canned or would also work raw.

Prep all the ingredients and have them ready before you start with the main part.

3. Fried Rice

1. On medium to high heat, stir-fry the aromatics in a cooking oil of your choosing until fragrant. Be careful not to burn the garlic.
2. Add a sip of chinese cooking wine (shaoxin) and let the alcohol evaporate (optional, but good for heat regulation)
3. Add the chili powder (Gochugaru) and mix with the aromatics
4. Add your flavour base and fry for a bit. In case you use Kimchi or yacai, add a bit more oil as well.
5. Add in the rice. Break up any clumps and coat everything evenly with the flavoured oil in the pan. Fry for a bit.
6. Turn the heat down to low. Add a tablespoon of soy sauce around the edge of the pan so that it hits the hot pan and not the rice directly. Then mix with the rice.
7. Add in the other prepped ingredients that are already cooked and mix.
8. Optional: finish it off with a touch of sesame oil.
9. Serve the result topped with sesame seeds or a fried egg, if you like.

Below is a picture of a version with Lao Gan Ma, Napa cabbage, peas and fried tofu cubes.