What is this? The choice of oil for fried rice plays an important part in creating authentic Asian flavor. Oils suitable for stir-frying are vegetable oil such as peanut and palm oil. They have a high smoking point suitable for stir-frying and a neutral taste that will not affect the flavor of the fried rice.
The thing that makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE (and took me years to discover) is the oil you fry the meat, veg, rice, noodles in. It MUST be toasted sesame oil. Once I used this, I kid you not, it was finally as good as, if not better (using own freshly bought ingredients), than any Chinese takeaways.
The first step in making the best fried rice is to cook the eggs in a little sesame oil. Cooking them in sesame oil with a pinch of sea salt adds so much flavor to the eggs and makes them really shine in the dish.
The answer: high heat, expert tosses, and something known as 'wok hei. ' As J. Kenji López-Alt writes for Serious Eats, expert cooking with a wok (and the gas range it requires) is one of the main reasons that fried rice from a Chinese restaurant tastes so much better than what you can make at home.
Chinese cooks normally use soybean oil, vegetable oil, or peanut oil, all of which have a high smoke point. Peanut oil usually has a pleasant nutty flavor and is suitable not only for stir-frying but also for deep-frying. Canola oil, which has a high smoke point but a neutral flavor, is also a good choice.
Peanut oil has been a top choice with commercial kitchens for years. It has all the ideal traits: affordability, a high smoke point, and a neutral flavor. The price point rivals that of vegetable oil, which makes it an enticing option for restaurants looking to cut costs wherever possible.
Oil: Although you can use almost any kind of cooking oil while you master how to make stir-fry, peanut oil is ideal. It can reach a higher temperature than other oils before it starts smoking. (If you have a nut allergy, other high smoke-point oils such as canola or avocado oil are great alternatives.)
Butter: This is my secret ingredient! This is what they use at hibachi restaurants for their fried rice and has been a game changer ever since I started using it. It adds a lot more flavor and helps to brown the rice.
Fried rice can be very unhealthy dish given that it is a very carb and fat heavy dish from the rice and heavy oil usage, and not enough protein content -- an average restaurant serving of fried rice is about 800 calories. However, it's easy to make a healthier version of fried rice by portioning ingredients mindfully.
There are a few different seasonings that make fried rice taste just right. The most important sauces to add are soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce in fried rice. All three add unique flavors to rice, but it can be easy to go overboard. Make sure you add small amounts of each and regularly taste the rice.
You can substitute any neutral cooking oil, such as avocado oil or refined sesame oil. Some fried rice recipes fry it directly in sesame oil, but since I have regular olive oil or avocado oil on hand more often, I use that and just add toasted sesame oil towards the end.
You want your rice to be a little bit dried out when you start so the end result isn't soggy. Butter – Any oil will work, but butter gives the best flavor.
In Fried Rice, most quick-service restaurants (QSRs) use long-grain white rice like Basmati, whereas Jasmine Rice is used in Chinese Rice.
The basic elements of Chinese fried rice include rice, meat and vegetables, soy sauce and garlic. A number of fried rice recipes have been developed in China, such as Yangzhou and Sichuan fried rice. Leftover cooked rice among the Cantonese is commonly made into fried rice, prepared with chopped vegetables and meat.
Fried rice can be served either as a main dish or side dish. Simple fried rice, without any meat or seafood, makes a nice substitute for plain cooked rice at an evening meal. At Chinese banquets, fried rice is frequently served at the conclusion of the main meal, before the dessert course.
Vinegar is one of the less used ingredient in a fried rice. You will not find vinegar in most Chinese fried rice recipes. But it really adds a slight tang to the rice and enhances the taste. Rice vinegar is used in Chinese cooking especially in stir fry, salad dressings etc.
Recipe Tips
Be sure to fry the rice in two or more batches. If you add too much at once, it won't get the crispy texture we're going for. While grape seed oil is my first choice, there are other oils you can use. Here's a great article on the best oils to use for frying.
Using badly-cooked rice
Adding too much or too little water, or cooking for too long, can leave you with rice that's either mushy, crunchy, soggy, or burnt, all of which are poor places to start for fried rice (via the Foods Guy). So, make sure that you're cooking your rice correctly.
Turmeric is the special ingredient that makes the fried rice yellow, and because of its incredible health benefits, the addition of this spice makes this recipe a good-for-you treat. A great way to use up leftover rice—rice that is several days old is perfect for this simple but extremely tasty recipe.
Many people think that the golden-brown color in the rice comes from soy sauce and sesame oil. And while both of those ingredients do add a bit of color, most of the color actually comes from properly cooking the rice on its own to a golden color before adding the rest of the ingredients.
Sticky rice gets its infamous stickiness from starch; or rather, one type of starch in particular. Other starchy foods contain two starch components—amylose and amylopectin. Sticky rice, however, is mostly amylopectin and while it does contain trace amounts of amylose, it's an insignificant amount.
So many different oils, the good news is you can stick with what you know – canola is great! The best oils for stir frys are the oils with the higher smoke points. These tend to be the “thinner” oils such as peanut, grapeseed or canola.
While extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) may be a staple in many countries' cuisine, especially in southern Europe, it only has a very marginal use in China. Usually associated with foreign brands and healthy cooking, EVOO is rarely used in Chinese kitchens where soybean and rapeseed oils are more prevalent.
Aromatic ingredients like garlic, ginger, green onions, chilies and spices. These ingredients are typically added to the oil first to infuse it with flavor. You won't need much; a few teaspoons to a tablespoon of total aromatic ingredients per person adds a serious amount of flavor.