Ground Report

How to home cook an authentic Chinese fried-rice?

Most of the Chinese fried-rice I have eaten outside China has no Chinese flavor. The worst I normally get is from the so called Chinese food stall in the super market or the Chinese restaurant itself. They are all called Chinese fried-rice which actually are not.

How then do we cook a good authentic dish of Chinese fried-rice at home? Chinese fried-rice is made up of about 80 % rice and 20 % ingredients. We can get a pack of white rice and some ingredients we like easily from any super market near by our house.

Since rice is the major portion of Chinese fried-rice, we must first learn to cook a pot of good rice.

Cooking rice

We may use an electrical rice cooker and follow the instruction to cook rice. But if you do not have a rice cooker, use an ordinary cooking pot and follow the steps below:

1. Open a pack of white rice and measure in 2 full cups of medium size coffee cup, which is good for one serve of an average appetite individual, in the pot. Double or triple the rice if 2 or three persons are to serve.

2. Add water into the pot until it is 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) high above the rice level, then put the lid cover back on.

3. Put the pot on the stove and turn on the gas with the high flame.

4. Let it on until it is bubbling boiled.

5. Simmer the flame immediately to the lowest possible blaze.

6. Let it on for 15 minutes and turn off the gas.

7. Let it settle for about 2 hours.

Prepare ingredients.

Do not use anything that is western in nature such as,

• Oil category – butter, cheese, olive oil.
• Sauce category – tomato sauce, mustard sauce, any type of salad sauce.
• Vegetable – broccoli, carrot, parsley.
• Meat – salami, lamb, beef.

Use, instead, Chinese oriented ingredient like,

• Oil category – ordinary vegetable or bean basecooking oil.
• Sauce – Soya bean sauce, fish sauce.
• Vegetable – cabbage, onion, tomato, Chinese mushroom.
• Meat – pork, shrimp, Chinese sausage, dried shrimp.

There is no special rule as to what type of ingredients you should use and how much. It really depends on what do you feel like eating and how much you like to have.

Once you have all you need, do the following:

1. Wash all ingredients thoroughly.
2. Cut vegetable into a nice spoon size of about 1×1 inch (2.5×2.5 cms.) piece.
3. Slice or cut meat into small cubes, leave the shrimp in whole if it is used.

Chinese fried-rice

You should follow the steps below to fry.

1. Heat up frying pan with 2-3 table-spoons full of vegetable cooking oil until burning hot.
2. Pour in meat first, stir fry for about one minute then put in vegetable to mix fry for another half a minute.
3. Simmer fire to the lowest and rinse off all juice-liquid in the pan. 4. (Leave the flame at this level until the dish is cooked.) Add 2-3 table spoons cooking oil.
4. Scoop rice from the pot into the pan.
5. Add soya bean or fish sauce to your personal taste.
6. Stir mix the rice with the ingredient until well mixed for about another 1 minute.
7. Turn off gas.

Serve hot with Chinese tea. ENJOY.