How to cook restaurant-quality fried rice at home?

Of all Asian foods, fried rice is the most popular dish outside Oriental regions. It is evident in the amount of Asian-style restaurants worldwide offering fried rice as the star of their menu.

Besides, it can be the most replicated eastern preparation in houses worldwide. Most people have a familiar fried rice recipe claiming to be the best.

Easy and fast way of cooking plus its versatility are good reasons for its popularity. Once you master the art of making fried rice, you have an entirely new dish every time you cook it.

A bit of fried rice history

Typical fried rice is a stir-fried dish with vegetables, beaten eggs, and meat. It works as a side dish or a complete meal, depending on the ingredients used in its preparation.

The first fried rice dish is traced back to the Sui dynasty by A.D. 589-618, in the city of Yangzhou, in southern China. The fact that fried rice was created in this part of China is perhaps no surprise since it is the birthplace of rice, the main component of this dish.

History reveals that fried rice was a way of using leftovers from meals. Generally, Chinese people consume freshly made rice as a side dish for all their meals. But, when they had some leftover food from the day before, they needed to find a solution, particularly for low-income families.

Placing the rice, vegetables, and meat in a pan, seasoned with soy sauce, and frying with lard was the solution. Thus, fried rice was born. It was a way to save money and use leftover food.

Fried rice varieties

Outside its boundaries, fried rice is called Chinese fried rice. If it includes other ingredients, it is called “special fried rice.” But, inside the country, there are endless recipes recognized by the place of origin.

Yangzhou fried rice is indeed the worldwide called Chinese fried rice. It is the reference recipe from which all other variations took their inspiration.

This fried rice includes roast pork, scallions, scrambled eggs, shrimp, and peas. It is the most common recipe cooked by people, as you can check in this recipe https://successrice.com/recipes/easy-shrimp-fried-rice/

This basic recipe is adapted to the local ingredients of every region. There are as many fried rice types in many countries in Asia.

Some of the different versions of fried rice include:

• Szechuan Fried Rice: It contains the typical ingredients of fried rice. The singularity of this dish is due to the doubanjiang sauce (known as Szechuan sauce). It gives a sweet, sour, and hot flavor to the rice. This rice includes ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and red chili paste.
• Cantonese Fried Rice: It is a traditional dish with rice, dried sausages, pork belly, carrots, green peas, shiitake mushrooms, onions, and beaten eggs. It is seasoned with soy sauce and served with thick gravy.
• Korean Bokkeum-bap: This version includes rice, white cabbage, garlic, broccoli, spring onions, scallions, and eggs. The special touch is for Doenjang (soybean) and Gochujang (hot pepper) pastes.
• Japan Chahan: A dish full of seafood components such as crab meat, octopus, and shrimp. It has eggs, green onions, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sake.
• Thai Khao Kluk Kapi: It is fried rice with shrimp paste, sweet and sour pork, sliced cucumber, shallots, and shredded green mango or papaya.

Fried rice around the world

Fried rice versions don’t belong only to Asia. You can indeed find restaurants offering authentic-style Asian fried rice. But, some others take the basics with local ingredients and offer it as Chinese fried rice.

Most countries have adapted the basic recipe to their local and common ingredients for making their unique fried rice. To name a few, you can find:

• Peruvian Fried Rice (Arroz Chaufa): This fried rice has exotic ingredients such as beef tongue, dried meat, lizard, or alligator.
• Dominican fried rice (Chofán): It may include traditional fried rice ingredients with celery, onions, peppers, carrots, peas, soy sauce, ham, chicken, and beaten eggs.
• Cuban fried rice (Arroz Frito): It has the typical ingredient along with ham, grilled pork, shrimp, chicken, eggs, and varied vegetables. Some versions include suckling pig (lechón), lobster tails, or crab.
• Puerto Rican fried rice (Arroz Mamposteao): It is a powerful dish with thousands of components and garnishes. It has red beans, plantains, squash, bacon, sausage, avocado, sesame seeds, avocado, cheese, or cilantro.

Tips for preparing the best homemade fried rice

All these vast selections of fried rice only leave you one option: To cook one of them. But before making fried rice at home, review the following tips to make a winning dish.

• Stir-fry in a wok or a large pan with enough oil.
• Pre-heat the wok before adding the ingredients.
• Make sure ensure your ingredients don’t stick to the surface of the wok.
• Cook only one or two servings at a time.
• Stir-fry the ingredients one by one.
• Use leftover white rice, preferably long-grain rice, and cold.
• Add rice in small batches, not all at once.
• Don’t forget about soy sauce and oyster sauce. Add them little by little.

Following these secrets guarantee you will prepare the best homemade fried rice.

Thai fried rice

Ingredients (4 servings):

• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.
• 2 minced cloves garlic.
• 10 head peeled shrimps.
• 1 ½ cups of one-day-cooked long-grain rice.
• 1 beaten egg.
• ½ tablespoon of soy sauce.
• ½ tablespoon of oyster sauce.
• 1 leaf of Chinese broccoli.
• ½ cup of finely chopped onion.
• Pinch of sugar.

Preparation:

1. In a wok or big frying pan, add the vegetable oil and heat at a high temperature.
2. Be sure, the oil is hot enough, and add garlic. Cook until it gets fragrant. Don’t stop stirring.
3. Add shrimp, and cook for 30 seconds.
4. Start incorporating rice in small batches. Stir-fry rice.
5. Make a space in the frying pan by placing at a side the rice. Then, add the beaten eggs into the space. Cook them for 10 seconds.
6. Combine rice and eggs.
7. Pour soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar. Continue stir-frying all ingredients.
8. Incorporate Chinese broccoli and onions.
9. Cook for 2 more minutes.
10. Serve immediately.