Medium-grain white rice: The variety you'll most commonly see in Chinese restaurants. Like jasmine, medium rice grains boast a great balance: They're strong individuals, but also good team players. White rice has less of a floral aroma than jasmine, which makes it a little more versatile.
There are a few different seasonings that make fried rice taste just right. The most important sauces to add are soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce in fried rice. All three add unique flavors to rice, but it can be easy to go overboard.
The fine, long grains of jasmine rice with its delicate flavour are perfect for fried rice. Precook the rice at least 30 minutes, but preferably one day, before making fried rice and keep it uncovered in the fridge.
The answer: high heat, expert tosses, and something known as 'wok hei. ' As J. Kenji López-Alt writes for Serious Eats, expert cooking with a wok (and the gas range it requires) is one of the main reasons that fried rice from a Chinese restaurant tastes so much better than what you can make at home.
Jasmine Rice
Jasmine rice is a type of long-grain rice that is commonly used in Chinese restaurants. It has a light, delicate flavor and a slightly sticky texture. What is this? Jasmine rice is named after the Jasmine flower, which has a similar aroma.
The most popular medium grain japonica rice is Calrose grown in California, which has about 18% amylose content. Calrose rice tends to be soft and slightly sticky, making it an all-purpose rice with desirable cooking properties and used by many Chinese restaurants as plain table rice or to flavor as sushi rice.
The basic elements of Chinese fried rice include rice, meat and vegetables, soy sauce and garlic. A number of fried rice recipes have been developed in China, such as Yangzhou and Sichuan fried rice. Leftover cooked rice among the Cantonese is commonly made into fried rice, prepared with chopped vegetables and meat.
Fried Rice Ingredients
Butter: This is my secret ingredient! This is what they use at hibachi restaurants for their fried rice and has been a game changer ever since I started using it. It adds a lot more flavor and helps to brown the rice.
When used to make fried rice, jasmine rice may beat out basmati rice because of its ability to crisp up without breakage. Because basmati is a longer, drier, less starchy grain, it tends to break when stir-fried. One other characteristic to keep in mind is that both rices are not totally neutral in flavor and aroma.
Any long grain rice or medium grain rice is suitable to make fried rice. Long & thin grains are less starchy while short and fat grains are starchier. So avoid short grains. Any regular long grain rice, basmati rice or medium grain rice like Jasmine rice are best.
What is the best rice to use for fried rice? Long grain rice, such as basmati or jasmine, is a good choice because it is light and fluffy. This type of rice will absorb the flavors of the other ingredients in the dish without becoming too mushy.
Turmeric is the special ingredient that makes the fried rice yellow, and because of its incredible health benefits, the addition of this spice makes this recipe a good-for-you treat. A great way to use up leftover rice—rice that is several days old is perfect for this simple but extremely tasty recipe.
Using badly-cooked rice
Adding too much or too little water, or cooking for too long, can leave you with rice that's either mushy, crunchy, soggy, or burnt, all of which are poor places to start for fried rice (via the Foods Guy). So, make sure that you're cooking your rice correctly.
Oyster sauce.
Oyster sauce has a sweet, salty, unique flavor that really adds depth to this fried rice sauce. If you are allergic to shellfish you can substitute with hoisin sauce.
Jasmine is my top choice because it has a light floral aroma, is not too sticky when cooked, and is slightly dry in texture. This selection also makes it easy to maneuver in the pan. You can use other types of rice, but just avoid short grains like Japanese sticky rice.
Leftover rice is ideal because it's drier and therefore, cooks great right in your skillet along with the other ingredients. Any moisture you need at all comes from the bit of oil and the veggies.
In the case of Chinese fried rice, chefs usually sauté all the vegetables in oil with black pepper and salt. After that, schezwan masala and cooked rice are added. However, in Indian fried rice, vegetables/meat are stirred fried, and then partially cooked rice is added.
The egg yolks and emulsified vegetable oil coat each grain of rice when it is fried with mayonnaise. So the Japanese mayonnaise really separates the rice grains. The amazing thing is, that you can't even taste the mayonnaise and it makes the fried rice much richer in flavour.
Sticky rice gets its infamous stickiness from starch; or rather, one type of starch in particular. Other starchy foods contain two starch components—amylose and amylopectin. Sticky rice, however, is mostly amylopectin and while it does contain trace amounts of amylose, it's an insignificant amount.
Chinese white rice is usually a medium to long grain variety, but there are many types and levels of quality.
Most of the rice eaten in southern China stems from the Oryza sativa indica subspecies (known in Chinese as “xian”), such as jasmine. However, the shorter grain Oryza sativa japonica (called “geng” in Chinese) that is common in Japan and Taiwan, is also gaining popularity here.
These days, most Chinese restaurants offer brown rice as an alternative to the usual white rice. More and more, we're ordering brown rice to go with dinners out. Upon request, many Chinese restaurants will make fried rice using brown rice instead of white rice, but you can make it at home with this recipe!