"Fried rice": in popular usage, it's not as simple as it sounds.

[cimorene]

So, hilariously, this happened yesterday:

MIL: Someone seems to have made rice (a/n: because, when going out of town for the day, she instructed us to eat rice for dinner, explaining that "Sandwiches are definitely unhealthy!"); it looks like fried rice for lunch - how's that sound?
CIM: Nommy.
MIL: So I'll fry this up and you go make the salad, then, OK?
[15 minutes later]
CIM: Didn't you want these root vegetables that I have chopped for the fried rice?
MIL: No, I'd rather have them raw.
CIM: ...OK. *the cold finger of fear touches Cim's soul*

What she did, was she put a huge quantity of olive oil in the pan, and heated the white rice until it was... heated, but not properly fried (that is, the rice hadn't coated itself and begun to absorb the oil. Fried rice shouldn't be in sticky clumps, and it's stir-frying for a proper length of time that gets rid of them). She added a handful of minced white onion and that was it: no seasoning. No nothing.

(03:28:27 PM) cimness@livejournal.com/: SO. Apparently to her "FRIED RICE" means, literally, "RICE THAT SOMEONE HAS FRIED A BIT" and not "dish of oriental origin denoting pre-cooked rice and vegetables sauteed & browned with flavourings".

I make a basic Chinese-style fried rice, which my mother assigned me to learn in middle school from The Encyclopedia of Chinese Cooking because it was simple and not time-consuming, and therefore suitable for me to learn by heart and prepare when my weekly cooking-dinner-for-the-family chore started. This is my recipe:

1. Heat a couple of tablespoons peanut or sesame oil in a small saucepan just until it begins to smoke; pour it over cold, cooked white rice in a wok and stir fry until piping hot.


2. Cut some veggies into small, easily-heated pieces. Basic version: carrots, green onions; full version: + water chestnuts, baby corn, bell pepper, green beans or peas, mushrooms. (Nowadays, being lazy, I'll use a bag of frozen vegetables.)


3. Scramble a couple of eggs; chop the egg into small pieces and add to the vegetable mixture. Add to rice once rice is piping hot through, and not before. Fry, stirring frequently, until vegetables are hot and crunchy bits are slightly softened.


4. Add a few tablespoons of soy sauce, and stir. Rice should be golden in color. Stir fry for a few more minutes.

And basically, my rule of thumb for ALL food, ever, is "add seasoning", so this kind of hurt me in my soul. In fact, I happily eat plain steamed rice... with soysauce. And the last thing I'd want to do to perfectly decent plain white rice is get it sopping wet in olive oil! I mean, ew!

I think we should be going home to Åbo next week.

Comments

[fearlessdiva]

OMG, thank you so much for posting this. I was just thinking yesterday about how I wished I had a recipe for fried rice because I've never made it and I got a hankering for some but am trying not to eat out. And I've tried a couple of recipes from one book or another and it never turns out quite the way I want. So now I shall try this. I don't know what's up with my previous attempts, as fried rice really isn't that hard, it would seem. Anyway, you've saved me a google search and now I have a pre-tested recipe to boot. Thanks!