Thai Fried Rice with Recipe

nobody@flickr.com (musicpb) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:42:13 -0700

musicpb posted a photo:

Great technique for fried rice

I picked this up watching an episode of Iron Chef. Normally, you must cool cooked rice for several hours before frying it; otherwise, you will end up with gummy, sticky rice. The Iron Chef, however, added raw eggs to freshly cooked rice. The egg coats the rice and keeps the grains from sticking to each other. This is great if you want to make fried rice without waiting several hours! The rice doesn’t taste like the result of a “short cut” either—in fact, I like it better than the normal technique.

Since Iron Chef doesn’t provide any recipes, I had to do a bit of guess work. I found that one egg to 2 cups of cooked rice seems to work well. Here is the recipe I worked out. You can change the ingredients listed at the end of the recipe to vary the style of the fried rice.

Fried Rice

Base Recipe
4 cups cooked jasmine rice*
2 eggs
3-4 tablespoons peanut oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4-1/3 cup shallots, chopped (onions would work as well)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Additions for variation
2-3 tablespoons Thai roasted chili paste, nahm prik pao*
1 bunch of Thai basil
1/2 cup or more fresh vegetables (pea pods or mushrooms, etc.)
Cucumbers for garnish

*I cooked 2 1/3 cups of dried rice and 3 cups of water in a microwave rice cooker for 18 minutes. First, I washed and drained the rice 6 times in a bowl of water to remove the excess starch.
* I use homemade Thai roasted chili paste made from dried red peppers, garlic, shallots, oil, sugar, salt, soy sauce, and tamarind liquid.

1. Cook the rice. Remove lid and stir rice to cool and separate grains (you will get the best results if you divide the rice into two bowls to facilitate cooling). Let stand for about 5 minutes.
2. Break raw eggs into rice and stir to coat grains.
3. Heat oil in wok on high heat. Add garlic and shallots and fry until they begin to brown.
4. Add Thai roasted chili paste and basil and fry for a minute or two.
5. Add vegetables and fry for a couple of minutes.
6. Add rice in 3 or 4 batches, stirring to incorporate other ingredients.
7. Finally, add seasonings and mix well.
8. Serve immediately with cucumbers and more basil to garnish.

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Thai Fried Rice with Recipe