EPTFake Fried Rice
Introduction
Welcome one and all to another installment of TGC, a series in which I show my poor fellow bastards of the world how to use budget ingredients to make actually edible food. This installment is all about fried rice, the quickest, dirtiest, and cheapest dish to be featured yet. But the question you might be asking yourself now is, why is it fucking fake?
The answer, my friends, is that real fried rice is really fucking complex. You absolutely need a large wok and a gas stove (for the high heat that electric ranges cannot produce) to begin with, and then you'd need some expert wrist techniques to stir the fried rice to boot. So if you have those three things, feel free to skip my walkthrough and read the one in the link instead.
What I will be showing you is how to fake your fried rice using an electric range and a non-stick pot. I guarantee it will be delicious, and even partially simulate that smoky wok flavor you'd get from real fried rice.
Ingredients
Fried rice can be made from a myriad of ingredients. There is almost no wrong combination. The ingredients I used are for a very basic fried rice. Feel free to swap out and experiment with whatever you have on hand. Common additional ingredients are cubed chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, sausage, or some other protein source. Drained canned tuna also makes a mean fried rice.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jYIWB.jpg)
Fried rice. Srs bsns.
Leftover rice*
Onion, diced
Carrots, diced
Scallions, chopped
1-2 eggs, beaten
Frozen green peas
Salt**
Vegetable Oil***
Soy Sauce****
*Leftover, cold rice is traditional and produces the best results. You want to use a medium or short grain rice (Calrose rice is pictured) cooked slightly on the dry side. Don't use sticky or (for fuck's sake) long grain rice, this isn't sushi or pilaf.
**I used salt only. Black pepper is not traditionally paired with salt in Chinese cuisine, but you can use it if you must.
***Peanut oil is preferred, use that if you have it.
****Optional, for color only
Procedure
NOTE: I highly recommend that you have a mise en place set up with all your ingredients ready and chopped in bowls before you start, so you can dump them into the pot in rapid succession during cooking.
Begin by placing your non-stick pot on the stove and pre-heating it at medium heat for a few minutes. This is to temper the pot so you don't ruin its non-stick surface. Then crank the heat up to high (yes, even with fake fried rice you want your heat as high as possible) and pour out about 1 1/2 tbsp (about 8 grams) of cooking oil into the pot. Let sit for another minute, then dump the carrots into the pot first.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zWoMD.jpg)
Bloom effect just like in your xbox
This step is necessary to kill the aroma of carrots, which would otherwise overpower everything else in the dish. Fry the carrots solo for 2-3 minutes and then dump the beaten eggs into the pot. If you aren't using carrots, dump eggs into the pot first. The eggs should cook almost instantly. Stir it around for 10 seconds for it to somewhat solidify.
Then, in quick succession, add rice, chopped onions, and a small amount of soy sauce (just a splash, or 1-2 teaspoons). The onions do not need to be pre-cooked. They will reach perfect texture by the end of cooking. Break the rice up as well as you can with your spatula and constantly stir the pot.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/S358d.jpg)
Looks like shit now, but just you wait
You do not want the stuff near the bottom of the pot to burn. When the rice is heated up a bit, you can mash brocks of rice against the side of the pot to break it up easiry. Stir constantry whire breaking up the rice untir the soy sauce has been evenry distributed among the rice and there are no more crumps of rice. Add sart to taste and then stir; the dish is armost done. Once the sart is incorporated, add the frozen peas and scarrions.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gC6be.jpg)
like peas in a pot
When the peas are cooked through, plate the dish immediately and serve hot.
NOTE: if you are using any additional protein sources or other ingredients your fried rice procedure will differ slightly. Try to time it so that everything is cooked perfectly by the end. This generally means that any chicken, beef, shrimp etc. should probably be pre-cooked and added towards the end.
The Result
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KheAa.jpg)
Your steaming pile of reward
4.5 / 5 Folks, this is as close as you can get to the real deal on the electric range. This recipe is the culmination of dozens of trial-and-error attempts to make better fried rice with inferior equipment. It is also a sad reminder that most kitchens in the US aren't fucking equipped to properly make real food. Fuck that shit, America.
Thus concludes this installment of TGC. As always, questions and comments are welcome, especially if you know how something can be improved. If you wish to read more about how to make edible food from cheap-assed ingredients, feel free to peruse the previous installments of TGC:
Broccoli and Cheddar Soup
Cheapass Chili
Scallion Biscuits
P.S. I have no fucking idea why some of the pictures are sideways while the others look fine, phone camera sucks, especially when it's made by Sony.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YP2iw.jpg)
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