Whenever I am pressed for time or have no idea what to cook and I don't want to eat yet another session of instant packet noodles, the other thing that comes in mind will be fried rice!
Fried rice is a common dish served in nearly all Chinese restaurants and definitely considered a Asian cuisine too. There are so many variations of fried rice - fried rice with salted fish, kampung (village) fried rice, Yongchow fried rice, thai fried rice, spicy fried rice, special fried rice etc etc.
To me....you can put any ingredients into fried rice and then you can name it as your own! :)
But the most important aspect is perfecting the texture of the fried rice. Here are my tips on what I do whenever I am cooking this at home.
1) Rice - it must be overnight rice that is kept in the fridge. Therefore if you want to cook fried rice the next day, best to cook more the night before and leave the leftover rice in the fridge. Or if you have leftover rice, best to just dish up a simple and delicious fried rice.
2) Before you cook the rice, please make sure that you loosen the rice. If the rice is clumped together, it would take more effort and strength to break-up the rice when it is in the wok.
3) Ingredients - I always cook the ingredients first before frying the rice. This is so that my ingredients are ready and I can solely focus on ensuring I get the right texture for my fried rice. If I fry the rice first and then add ingredients, there is a chance that I may overcooked the rice while waiting for the ingredients to be ready. So I will first fry the ingredients, scoop them out, leave aside, then fry the rice and add the ready cooked ingredients and voila...it's perfect!
4) Ensure that wok is hot with oil. Turn up the fire to ensure a heated wok for fast distribution of heat to the rice.
5) Do some arm work-out before you start to cook the fried rice. :) You need the strong arms for fast stirring of the rice in the wok. Since you need big fire in wok, you will need to stir fast and hard to ensure that the rice does not burn.
Hope the above tips help. Let me know what other tips you have.
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5 comments:
Yes, the first and most important tips is the overnight rice! If you gonna use a just-cooked rice for fried rice, it will be a disaster. Nice topic over there ^^
Congrats to your new site.. I am happy to see a fellow food lover !
Hyperx - Thanks. you are right, I have had my share of just cooked rice that got stuck on the wok while frying. Such a mess!
mywoklife - Yup, I am excited about food and food blogging, though have to take care of my waistline :)
What a great post. My fried rice never turns out the way I hope. I'll have to follow your tips!
kristen - let me know how it turns out!! Good luck!
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