Fried Rice and rice basics

By Linda Mericle
@bakermom2

Fried rice is super easy, mostly a matter of putting together pre-cooked foods into a pot. The rice, vegetables and meats are usually ready to go. Then you add seasoning and scramble up an egg. There are as many variations of fried rice as there are people. This is how I generally make it. Sometimes I add cashews or peanuts. Feel free to add your variations. Pick up some egg rolls from your local egg roll hangout!

Rating:

☆☆☆☆☆ 0 votes

Serves:

4 or so

Prep:

20 Min

Cook:

10 Min

Method:

Stove Top

Ingredients

4 c: cooked white or brown rice
1: egg
: leftover meats, bacon, sausage, shrimp, chicken, ham, etc
1/2 c: frozen peas
1/4 c: frozen corn
1/4 c: soy sauce, or more to taste
2 Tbsp: toasted sesame oil
2 clove: garlic
2: scallions (green onions) sliced
: some sesame seeds (optional)

How to Make Fried Rice and rice basics

Step-by-Step

1FRIED RICE; get out a large skillet or wok. Heat on medium high heat and add a little olive oil. (or canola, etc).A little being about 2 tablespoons. Spread it around the pan.
Chop the meats you may be using up into little bite size pieces. Sometimes I cook up some bacon just for this and use some of the bacon fat to cook the fried rice in.
Scramble up the egg with a fork in a bowl. Add this to the hot skillet and cook, stirring with the fork or wooden utensil. (If it is a non-stick skillet, do not use the fork! It may scratch and damage it.) Eggs only take about 30 seconds to cook.
2Add the meat and frozen vegetables and saute, stirring, until heated.Clear the center of the pan by pushing the food aside and add a little more oil to it. Then put the garlic, diced, and the sesame seeds in with it. Let it sizzle a little and mix into the meat/vegy mix. Now add in the rice, breaking it up with your wooden utensil or spatula. Mix it all together, heating, and add in the soy sauce and sesame oil. Once its all hot, top with the chopped scallion and serve it up in rice bowls! (or whatever).
3PERFECT BROWN RICE: Heat up a pot of water, like you would for pasta. So say a medium pot with about6 cups or so of water. Get it to a boil. Add your rice. It does not matter too much how much rice. Perhaps a cup or 2. If you want to make more, use a larger pot.
Anyway, once the water is boiling and you added your rice, add a teaspoon of salt and set the timer for 30 minutes. NO LID. Just let it simmer for 30 minutes. That may mean turning down the heat a little to keep it at a simmer.
Here is the tricky part! When the timer goes off, drain the rice FOR 10 SECONDS ONLY in a wire strainer or other strainer with tiny holes the rice wont go through. Immediately put the pot back on the stove with NO HEAT and put a lid on it. Set the timer for another 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, fluff the rice with a fork-it is done!
4If you are wanting to use the rice for fried rice, in a perfect world, you would make the rice in advance and bag it up and put it in the fridge to chill until needed.
If you do not have enough time, if you did not think this far ahead, make the rice, then scoop it out onto a baking sheet, spreading it out to cool.It cools pretty quickly this way.
5WHITE RICE: I use 1 1/2 times the amount of water to rice. a 1:1.5 ratio. So if I am making 1 cup of white rice, I will want to use 1 1/2 cups of water. 2 cups of rice would use 3 cups of water, etc. Heat the water in a pot and when boiling, add the rice. It is usually better to rinse the rice first, to clean it.
Add the rice to the boiling water, turn down the heat so it is a low simmer and put a lid on it. Let it simmer/steam like this for 20 minutes. Take the lid off and see if there are craters in the rice. That is a good thing. Take the pan off the heat and let sit 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and taste for tenderness. Serve now or cool for fried rice later.