OT _ Fried Rice

billt01

So...

I have sees several methods to the hibachi style fried rice...

"Day Old rice"
"Sherry" or "Miran" (sp)
"White Pepper"
"Mix the eggs in the rice before the cooker"
"Mix the eggs in on the cooker"
"Mix in eggs before AND on the cooker"
"Sugar"
"Teriyaki sauce"
"Soy sauce"
"Worcestershire sauce"
" Effing Ketchup"
"Sesame seeds"
"Sesame oil"
"frozen carrots and peas"

Hard to sift through all the BS on the web...

any help from y'all on what works would be appreciated...  

Eoin

Generally, for fried rice you want cold rice with separated grains. The most important part is cooking it right, if the rice is soggy / stuck together it just won't work.

DMW

Fried Rice is the Asian equivalent to American casserole. Basically, it can be just about anything and traditionally it was an end of week, use up the leftovers thing. That's why you see such variety in recipes. It would be like looking for a singular casserole recipe.

Kent8621

we use brown rice, works better if you make it the day before.  a couple eggs, frozen peas and carrots mix, onion and liquid aminos.  the liquid aminos are great substitute for soy sauce and far less salt content.  the taste is the same to me at least.  I typically do it with some grapeseed oil or vegetable oil on the blackstone.  cook the eggs in one corner the veggies in the other, as they get done add the rice stir and add the amnios.

billt01

thanks all

ColtsFan

I use day old Jasmine rice, onion, frozen peas/carrots, and the eggs directly on the blackstone and then mix. Soy sauce, red pepper flake and sesame oil finish it off.

added protein optional

tarheelmatt

For fried rice here's some of my workflow: 

• Cook rice prefreably day before and spread on a sheet pan, sit in the fridge overnight not covered all the way.  
• I use a 1:1 ratio water to rice for a dryer rice.  
• I use low sodium soy sauce
• I use really any veggie and meat.  Like @DMW said, it's like a US casserole.  Sky is the limit.  

northGAcock

When do you add the lice?

Aviator

northGAcock said:

When do you add the lice?

Before you start. Will keep you brisk at the BS and work it with a lot of gusto.
  Sorry, just had to. 

tarheelmatt

northGAcock said:

When do you add the lice?

Me?  

I add first thing, but on low/med on the BS.  Generous amounts of clarified butter down, then more on top.  I let that go while the veggies are getting happy.  

When veggies start to get happy, I'll bring the rice to the middle and get that browned up, then incorporate the veggies.  

StillH2OEgger

DMW said:

Fried Rice is the Asian equivalent to American casserole. Basically, it can be just about anything and traditionally it was an end of week, use up the leftovers thing. That's why you see such variety in recipes. It would be like looking for a singular casserole recipe.

Like DMW says, none of the asian restaurants we visit treat fried rice the same. Figure out what you like and roll with it. Except ketchup, that just seems wrong.

northGAcock

tarheelmatt said:

northGAcock said:

When do you add the lice?

Me?  

I add first thing, but on low/med on the BS.  Generous amounts of clarified butter down, then more on top.  I let that go while the veggies are getting happy.  

When veggies start to get happy, I'll bring the rice to the middle and get that browned up, then incorporate the veggies.  

No Matt...a weak attempt a humor. I need a Lote. 

tarheelmatt

northGAcock said:

tarheelmatt said:

northGAcock said:

When do you add the lice?

Me?  

I add first thing, but on low/med on the BS.  Generous amounts of clarified butter down, then more on top.  I let that go while the veggies are getting happy.  

When veggies start to get happy, I'll bring the rice to the middle and get that browned up, then incorporate the veggies.  

No Matt...a weak attempt a humor. I need a Lote. 

The_Stache

My take on this is pretty much the same as everyone with the following exception(s):
I start with finely chopped up Onion and a light pressed oil (grape seed or olive) with a touch of sesame oil and soften up the onion till they are transparent.  I may add a little garlic to this process for a bit more flavor.

The rest of the process is about the same... add peas and carrots, toss together with the onions and garlic.  Scramble a couple of eggs on the side to be added towards the end of the cook.  Once all the veggies (and meats if I add any) are all warmed through I add the day old rice and mix this all together.  I lastly add Tamari sauce (or soy) to get the proper color/final taste.

Pretty simple process and I really don't think it can be messed up!

Best of luck!

gdenby

My wife had a friend, Chinese-American, born in China. For her, fried rice was essentially left-overs. What ever. Started w. butter, but said sesame oil was good. Had never seen sesame oil at the time. Used tamari sauce when available, soy otherwise. Liked adding in ginger powder, some paprika. Preferred chopped snow peas to frozen peas, but at the time those were rare. She usually pushed the mess to the side, and fried an egg, which was than chopped up after the edges browned. We came to prefer mixing it thru the mass right at the end.

She would use canned water chestnut, baby corn, sometimes bamboo shoots. We've dropped those. From what I understand, canned water chestnuts are to fresh what canned okra is to fresh. Avoid in most cases. Also standards like carrots, broccoli florets, scallions, garlic.

I still mostly fry with butter, but add some tahini towards the end for the sesami flavor. Add thin slices of hot peppers instead of paprika. Never found any true mirin, and I don't like sherry.

booksw

my sister in law is from Beijing- she always adds anchovies as a seasoning when she makes fried rice

stv8r

ColtsFan said:

I use day old Jasmine rice, onion, frozen peas/carrots, and the eggs directly on the blackstone and then mix. Soy sauce, red pepper flake and sesame oil finish it off.

added protein optional

That's some fine looking rice there for sure!

Botch

I lightly oil my wok, heat up on the Small, mix 1 or two eggs in a bowl, then pour into the wok and immediately swirl, to cover as much of the wok surface as possible (you want a large, thin egg "pancake").  Remove, roll into a loose roll, slice every 1/4" across roll (giving you a bunch of long strips), then slice once along the length of the roll (giving you a bunch more short strips).  
Reheat wok, oil, and add onion, rice to cook, adding any veg and proteins (leftovers) according to their required cooking times.  Add the egg strips to reheat and serve.
Note:  sesame oil should be used as a seasoning (sparingly), never as a cooking oil (it burns easily).  

billt01

all, I appreciate everyone's input..

The first go was a mediocre success.

My process was to start out with a half of stick of slated butter and I slathered that all over the cook top. Next, I added my veggies of onions, peas, and carrots and let those go for ~4  minutes. Then I added my rice and another half stick of butter, sherry, sesame oil, salt and white pepper. I would use the back of my spatula moving the rice like a snow plow from one side of the 36 to the other letting it sit for ~ 30 seconds on every "plow". I knew I may be close as the rice was jumping off the griddle as I have seen it done at many Hibachi restaurants after about 5 minutes

I added my whipped egg mixture directly into the rice bank and continued to "plow" from left to right another 3 to 4 minutes. The "snow plow" method did a good job at keeping the rice "loose" .

I think my griddle should have been a bit hotter because I believe the rice could have gone another 3 minutes before it reached the texture I was trying to achieve. 

Thanks again for the help!

Theophan

The only thing I want to add is to urge people to be sure the rice that's destined to be cooked is put in the fridge promptly, and not left out at room temperature very long.

Many years ago, in a hospital ER in Philadelphia that happened to be near a bunch of Chinese restaurants, I was told that by FAR the most common cause of food poisoning in that ER was fried rice!

The reason was that the rice that was going to be fried often sat around for a while after it was cooked and before it was fried, so there was a while when it was still warm and moist and a wonderful environment to grow bacteria in.  Bacillus cereus bacterial spores are fairly often found in rice, and boiling won't kill them.  So they can germinate and grow when the cooked rice cools down enough, and as they grow they produce a heat-stable toxin.  When that rice then gets fried, the bacteria are killed, but the toxin is still there!  So people enjoy their fried rice but a while later are exploding at both ends and wishing they were dead.

Some people think that if there's no animal products it can't spoil.  Boy are they wrong...

Not a big deal -- no reason not to make fried rice!  Just don't leave the cooked rice out for a long time before chilling it.

Eggcelsior

If you forget to make rice ahead of time, cooking it and spreading it on a sheet pan to dessicate out in a low oven works pretty well. Just stir it every once in a while to expose all the grains.