If you are going to make it as an Asian Dad cooking, you gotta have a kick butt Chinese Fried Rice recipe. Fried Rice is the first dish I started with, and is a must in your cooking repertoire. I would say for me, I needed something that I could cook quickly, and that the kids would actually eat. In my endless internet browsing for the best fried rice recipe, I came upon my a recipe from a veteran old chef at a Chinese restaurant.
So quickly, here is what you need:
- Day old rice (or just rice that isn’t super mushy). You can use jasmine rice, but I use Japanese or Korean rice and it’s totally coolio.
- Soy Sauce (Kikkoman for me, but doesn’t matter that much)
- Sesame Oil (even though the recipe doesn’t call for much, I wouldn’t skip this ingredient it adds that oily flavor, good smell, and is a good ingredient you can adjust up and down to your taste.)
- White Pepper Powder (don’t even try to make fried rice without this ingredient).
- Salt and Pepper
- Chinese Sausage (this is a must have if you want your kids to eat your fried rice!)
- Eggs (If you kids don’t like egg, don’t worry it is barely noticeable for them, but makes it taste better for you)
- Vegetables (Hmm, I didn’t add vegetables to start because my son is allergic to vegetables (just kidding), but I have been slowly adding celery and carrots into the mix)
You need a Wok! Or at least a non-stick pan
Ok, you don’t “need” a wok, but you should get a wok if you want to cook Chinese food. After I got a wok, I started cooking way more Chinese food, it was just a ton easier. Plus, that heat off the wok, and the stir frying in a wok, just makes me feel like a real cook. It is totally worth it even if my wife gets super pissed when she sees vegetables and noodles all over the stove.
I also learned everything I know about how to wok from the awesome website The Woks of Life cooks. Their recipes are a great starting place. After you get a bit more comfortable with the wok, you can just adjust the ingredients up or down for your taste (i.e more soy sauce for saltier, oyster sauce if you like that thicker flavor, more cornstarch slurry if you want to thicken your sauce).
If you don’t have a wok, or don’t want to get a wok yet, then you can use a non-stick pan. The rice probably won’t get as “fried”, because you won’t be able to get the pan as hot, but that is totally cool, you fried rice will still taste good. Without further adieu here is my favorite old dependable fried rice recipe.
Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage
Equipment
- Wok or Non-stick pan
Ingredients
- 4 cups day old rice
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/8 tsp ground white pepper add more if you like the taste
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 stirred eggs
- 3 links Chinese sausage
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil don't use olive oil
Instructions
- Find Ingredients
Prep
- Cut Chinese Sausage into thin slices
- Cut Celery stalk in half and then thin slices
- Measure out the soy sauce, sesame oil, and have ready to mix in
- Crack eggs and stir in bowl as if you are going to scramble them next
Cooking
- Heat up wok or non-stick pan on medium heat at add 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
- Add Chinese sausage and cook for about 2-3 minutes until they are dark and almost burned (some burn marks ok). Remove the sausage to another plate when finished.
- Do not drain wok, you can have the oil from the sausage to cook the scrambled eggs. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the eggs. Scramble the eggs, and remove to plate when finished.
- Increase the heat to medium-high and add 2 tbsp of vegetable oil to the wok. Add day old rice, and mix around for a minute.
- Add in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper, and mix for 1 minute.
- Add Chinese sausage, celery and egg to the wok,
- Cook and mix until you like the consistency of the rice. All the ingredients are pretty much cooked so I would just cook until you get the rice as fried as you like it.
Adapted from Chop Chop’s recipe as follows:
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