How to Cook Fried Rice and make it Taste Spectacular!

Learning to cook fried rice and amaze your family and friends has to be high on the list of dishes to learn. Fried rice certainly is a common dish in our family. My Thai wife cooks it regularly and its always amazing. It’s a great dish to cook when there is some rice remaining and often not much time or desire to cook anything else.

How to Cook Fried Rice Ingredients.

The best fried rice has some common elements. If you may already cook fried rice at home and its not like your local Chinese or Asian restaurant then its the ingredients you need. I’m going to give you the secrets to how to cook fried rice and your life will never be the same again.

The order you cook Asian food is totally opposite to the way most westerners cook Asian food. I’ve seen it over and over again. Take note please when we start cooking the order we use. This is where the results can be hugely different.

Fried rice actually starts with rice that’s cooked correctly. Going to western BBQs over the years someone always brings a rice salad and mostly it’s normally a disaster. The rice is nearly never cooked properly! Its either hard and uncooked or just soggy and uncooked. The results of being cooked at all are a result of how much water you use. Water quantity is the keys to the Ferrari of great rice.

Rice Cooking Perfection Every Time.

Let’s just start with the basics and say right out of the gate, if you have not got one of these rice cookers please just go buy one. Yes you can cook rice in a pot, yes we do it on occasion but a rice cookers will just make it so, so simple and consistent.

Rice Varieties.

There are a lot of different rice varieties to consider. We use Thai Jasmine rice ourselves but we have used Indian Basmati on doctors recommendations. The Basmati has less gluten so this may be a better health choice for you. There is also a myriad of long and short grain rice’s in Australia and around the world. Use your favorite but feel free to experiment. The Thai Jasmine is extremely good.

Cook Your Rice.

• 1. Put rice in rice cooker.
• 2. Rinse rice with water and poor the water out. Retaining the rice. The water will be milky and may have some husks.
• 3. Re rinse the rice till the water you poor is not milky. (This is starch).
• 4. Poor water onto the rice till there is about one knuckle of water or a little more above the level of the rice.
• 5. Put rice in the cooker, close the lid and turn ON. It’s cooking. Don’t touch.
• 6. NORMALLY the light will go red on the cooker when turned to cook. The rice is cooking. Leave it alone till the light return to ORANGE.
• 7. UNPLUG the rice cooker and using a plastic or wooden spoon stir the now cooked rice. It will be hot and steam will be present so be careful. It will be white and fluffy.
• 8. Close the lid and leave it to finish cooking. There should not be any water but a lot of steam is good. In 20 minutes you can open the lid and let the rice cool or plate it up for a stir-fry.

How to Cook Fried Rice Ingredients.

There are a few must haves when learning how to cook fried rice. Your local Asian grocery should be able to help you with hard to find items. There are two Soya sauces that are important to cooking Asian foods. The standard white/light soy sauce which is thin in texture and made by Maggi and other companies. Easy to find anywhere.

The second sauce you MUST have to get the flavor and the color. It is Sweet Soy Sauce. It’s called Sa-euw in the Thai language. It’s known as sweet soy sauce but it has the consistency of Malaises. Picking up a bottle of black soy sauce it should be like honey in consistency. You literally only need a tea spoon or even much less to get that brown cooked fried rice. A few small drops can go a very long way even in a big wok of rice.

• Cooked Rice.
• Light Soy Sauce.
• Dark Soy Sauce ( The thick one)
• Sugar.
• Salt.
• egg
• onion sliced
• Garlic
• mixed frozen vegetables
• Chinese Sausage – Recommended.
• Oil
• Butter
• Chili (Sliced or Flecks) optional.
• Diced pork or chicken (as desired) optional.

Wok Cooking.

If you want to know how to cook fried rice like the professionals then a wok is very much recommended. If you don’t have a wok it’s ok to use a pot or a large pan. Woks give you some depth when cooking and stirring. You can get good woks.at your local Asian shop if you wish as well as department stores.

Woks when new need to be seasoned. If done correctly will be as good as a non stick pan. Seasoning requires getting the pan super hot and introducing oil into it. This could be a little dangerous if your not careful. The oil could catch alight. It must be done to metal untreated woks.

Ask in store for advice. If the wok you buy is nice silver and new, it needs seasoning. Woks that are black may already be seasoned or have a non stick coating. Should it be a non stick pan then remember not to use metal utensils be assembled they scratch and damage the surface.

How to Cook Fried Rice!

OK let’s do this. Your minutes away from a delicious fried rice meal for yourself, family or friends. Preparation is crucial so get all your ingredients ready. This all happens pretty quickly so you don’t want to be running to the refrigerator of cupboard to find ingredients while cooking.

• Oil – add to Wok – 2 table spoons.
• Add Garlick and onion (sliced).
• Add eggs X 2 – Stir Stir Stir
• Add Mixed Frozen Vegetables. Stir.
• Stir all till cooked
• Add any meat or Chinese Sausage- Sliced.
• Add Rice and Stir all continuously.
• Add Salt – 1 tsp approx. Stir.
• Add Sugar – 1Tsp approx. Stir.
• 1n tsp sugar. Stir
• Add Soy Sauce – Light – Stir Stir Stir!
• Add Sweet Soy ( Thick) Just a few drops.
• STIR STIR STIR
• Taste is it sweet? Salty? Add to balance flavors.
• Taste and adjust as needed.

Serve your Fried Rice.

In the market you will be served fried rice with an egg on top as well as cucumber so if you want to be authentic Thai/Asian market feel free to add the final touches.

I hope you found this recipe helpful in your desire to know how to cook fried rice. I hope you and the family enjoy fried rice Asian style for many years.

Author.

Brendon McAliece is an Australian expert living in Thailand with his wife 37 years. The guides I provide are from her cooking style. Her food is incredible and I should be 200 kg considering it’s quality. I have spent over 20 years living and working in Asia, Middle East and living in Thailand.

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