Egg fried rice with vegetables is, for me personally, almost the key criterion for judging a Chinese restaurant's menu. If the egg fried rice with vegetables is excellent – the rest of the dishes usually turn out to be great too. But if a restaurant serves disappointing fried rice, which is, incidentally, the most basic dish in any Chinese restaurant, it would be naive to expect an explosion of flavour from anything else. Yes, fried rice matters that much to me! 😀 I am sure there are more fans of this rice out there, which is why I am hurrying to share my recipe for egg fried rice with vegetables, which really does outdo the rice at most restaurants.😉🥡
I have cooked this dish at home many times. I refined it, corrected it and changed it with every attempt, until I finally realised there are only a few key secrets to making perfect egg fried rice with vegetables at home:
- THE RICE.It is no secret that the shape of a grain of rice essentially tells you how much starch it contains. The logic is simple – the longer the grain (long-grain, jasmine, basmati), the less the grains stick to each other and the more separate they are, because they contain less starch than round rice (sushi rice, arborio rice and so on), which is stickier and clumps together. So, to make perfectly separate fried rice, we needONLY LONG-GRAIN RICE.The second essential point about the rice –THE RICE MUST BE COLD.Ideally, use leftover rice that has been in the fridge overnight. Sitting in the fridge firms the rice up, which means you dramatically reduce the chance of it turning to mush as it fries. Do not skip this step under any circumstances!
- A VERY, VERY HOT PAN.When frying the vegetables and rice, the highest possible temperature matters enormously, or neither the vegetables nor the rice will start to colour straight away. Slow cooking in a moderately hot pan means the rice and vegetables will give off a lot of steam, which adds unnecessary moisture to the dish and may make the rice sticky – and that is not at all what we want. The goal is separate, golden rice. I would also recommend using a wok, because it gets exceptionally hot and browns the rice from every side.
- SEASONINGS. If you have always wondered what gives Asian dishes that distinctive flavour, the answer is very simple. The whole secret is: a)soy sauce(it is important not to overdo it, so the rice doesn't turn watery and sticky); b)oyster sauce(one of the key ingredients, and the one that gives THAT Asian umami aftertaste); c)toasted sesame oil(essential! Buy some, smell it, and you will understand why straight away 😉Just don't confuse it with plain sesame oil!); d)fish sauce(not essential, but if you have it, do use it instead of salt!). The quantities of these ingredients in the recipe are approximate; do adjust them to your own taste. Different brands of sauce also vary in intensity, so it is always better to start with less.👌
What I love about this dish is that you can put anything in it! All kinds of vegetables from sweetcorn to cabbage, proteins – from prawns to chicken – and other additions from hot sauce to toasted cashews or mushrooms. Your imagination is the limit. What's more, I make egg fried rice with vegetables whenever I want to clear out the fridge. Leftover vegetables? Into the pan. Leftover scrambled eggs? Into the pan. Or maybe there are a few bits of bacon left from yesterday? Into the pan as well! Quick. Simple. Delicious.👌
