Egg Fried Rice

Fried rice is a next-day food best made with leftovers. Egg Fried Rice can be deceptively simple with a complex blend of flavors and aromas that depend on proper cooking technique and Wok Hei, or Breath of the Wok.

Growing up, fried rice was almost always purchased as take-out from a local American-Chinese restaurant. It would come scooped into a styrofoam combination plate or packed into a takeout box mounded on top and held in with a twisted metal handle. Like all restaurants, some were better than others and everyone had a favorite.

Egg Fried Rice has been popularized on the internet and throughout social media. It is inexpensive, and a perfect version to learn as a basis for other forms that feature more complex proteins and ingredient combinations. Rice should be prepared the day before and chilled overnight to harden and crystallize. This helps the individual grains to remain separate, become evenly coated with oil and toast in the hot wok. If you don't have a rice maker, here is a simple recipe for long grain white rice:

Fried rice tastes best with wok hei. The best way to describe wok hei is the flavor you get when outdoor grilling. The intense heat browns the surface of the food, fats and oils break down and combust creating a smoky aroma, and charred edges develop complex flavors. Any wok stove worth it's weight will put out at least 100,000 BTU/Hr. Most indoor consumer-grade gas range burners top out at 20,000 BTU/Hr or less. Restaurant-quality fried rice requires the right equipment.

Scallions bring important freshness, aroma and color to egg fried rice. Trim the roots and tough green tips, then split the whites in half before thinly slicing.

Use good quality eggs if you can. Local options will often feature more viscous whites due to freshness and large deep-orange yolks. This coloration comes from carotenoid-rich feed supplements and/or foraged plants/insects often absent from industrial-scale operations.

The addition of a small amount of sugar doesn't give the dish a sweet-forward flavor profile - it comes across as fresh and makes the salty seasonings sing. A small amount of MSG boosts the umami, while the white pepper is a secret-ish ingredient that instantly clicks into place for people when added to starches. MSG has an undeserved reputation, and is a natural compound found in ingredients such as tomatoes and mushrooms.

Oyster sauce is one of the primary flavors in restaurant fried-rice dishes be it pork, beef, vegetable, shrimp or egg. It is another ingredient that is instantly recognizable when present. Most oyster sauces are artificial, but Lee Kum Kee offers both artificial and natural sauces. We recommend Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce for this dish. The soy sauce bumps the umami further, and the dark soy sauce is there simply for color.

Cooking a full quart of fried rice on a wok stove takes just 2-4 minutes. You have to prepare all of your ingredients in advance and have them at hand. A quick trip indoors for a missing ingredient will likely result in charcoal for dinner. Turn the stove completely off if you must step away.

A large part of wok hei comes from fats and/or oils beginning to break down, becoming aerosols mixed with steam and combusting in the open flame of the stove. This imparts a complex smoky flavor that is a major component to restaurant-quality stir-frys including fried rice. A slight cheat is to briefly smoke the oil prior to adding the first ingredient - eggs in this case.

Stir and toss. Regularly pass the leading edge of the wok shovel or ladel over the surface of the pan - especially the bottom well of the wok where the heat is most intense to ensure nothing sticks or dwells too long. Add the wet ingredients to your shovel/ladel and not directly to the pan. This will allow you to better control how it is dispersed and toss the ingredients as the liquids are applied. The scallions should not be completely cooked through. Complex flavors and aromas come from partially cooking the scallions.

If you look closely at the grains of rice you should see small golden-brown spots where both the rice and seasonings have toasted. Making a good batch of fried rice is rewarding, with spoonfulls that briefly stay together under the pressure of a spoon, lift from the plate and then fall apart into individual grains. A ratio of 1 cup cooked rice to 1 egg to 1 tablespoon of oil properly carries the flavors without being greasy.

This recipe took a lot of development time from both an ingredient and technique perspective. The right equipment was a major step forward, along with the oyster sauce and white pepper. Hopefully it provides a good starting point if you are passionate about producing excellent fried rice at home.