Posted on by ketchup

Golden Fried Rice Technique – using freshly cooked rice (plus my process)

Ingredients

  • 1.5-2.5 cups (2 or so servings) cooked, warm short grain rice – I like Botan or Nishiki
  • 3 eggs, separated, whites scrambled
  • Neutral oil, or bacon fat (dad’s secret)
  • Aromatics, meats, veggies, etc. – whatever you want to add to your fried rice. Examples include:
    • Finely diced bacon, raw or precooked. These cook/are added at different times in the process outlined below
    • Seasoned proteins – chicken, beef, pork, etc.  Be sure to season it slightly before cooking
    • Finely diced carrots
    • Finely diced onion
    • Scallions (chopped finely, white parts and green parts separately)
    • Green beans, raw or cooked. If raw, chop into small pieces. I like to blister them in 1-1.5 inch long pieces first, by drying them well, tossing them into a very hot pan, and then adding some neutral oil – shake every minute or so until they blister to your liking
    • Frozen peas – you can take them out of the freezer at the beginning of prep so they have some time to defrost, but it’s not necessary
    • Garlic paste or ginger paste
    • Seasonings like soy sauce, salt, pepper, chinese five spice, chinese bouillon powder, msg, sesame oil

Note that at any point in the process, you can remove the wok from the heat source if you need to incorporate an ingredient well into the mix, and don’t want to leave the rice on the heat too long/prevent it from burning.

Directions

  1. Add beaten egg yolks to warm rice and mix until well coated.
  2. Cook your other ingredients in a wok, using neutral oil or bacon fat, in the following order, before adding rice:
    1. Raw proteins – bacon, seasoned raw meat. Remove from the pan before continuing, add in toward the end of the process.
    2. Hardier vegetables – diced carrots, larger diced onions, raw green beans
    3. Precooked bacon pieces
    4. Softer vegetables – scallion whites, for example
    5. At this point, move onto cooking your rice in the same wok.
  3. Push the ingredients to one side and pour in beaten eggs. If necessary, add a little more oil.
  4. Stir in the beaten eggs with the spatula and add warm rice into the wok.
  5. Stir-fry the rice and loosen up any clumps. Flatten the rice with the back of the spatula so that it is in contact with the base of the wok.
  6. If adding an ingredient like frozen peas, add now, and cook for a minute or two to heat up the peas.
  7. If adding a protein back to the rice, do so now and cook just enough to heat it through.
  8. If adding already cooked green beans, add now.
  9. Only at this point would I add garlic, especially if it’s prepared garlic (like refrigerated garlic paste).  Be sure to distribute this well. Feel free to move the wok off the heat if necessary.
  10. Sometimes I’ll add in ginger paste at this point, as well, with the garlic paste.
  11. If you want to add soy sauce, do so now. It can burn and it can also sit in one spot of the rice, so try to sprinkle it evenly, toss, and only heat for a short amount of time, until you can smell it in the air.
  12. Add in any dry seasonings – salt, pepper, five spice, for example.  At this point, taste the rice and adjust seasonings as necessary.
  13. If you want to add sesame oil, do so now. The flavor is very strong, so be sparse with it.
  14. Lastly, add a generous amount of finely diced green onion – the green parts only – to the rice. Remove from heat and combine well.
  15. Taste a final time and adjust seasonings as needed.