# Best fried rice I've ever had



## medtran49 (May 7, 2016)

I have never liked fried rice, whether restaurant/takeout or homemade, but DH loves it. So, I was looking at recipes to see if I could find one I might like when I came across one that 4.9 out of 5 stars. Checked out the reviews, made notes on the little changes people made and came up with the following for the first time we made it. After I post the basic recipe, I'll note the changes we made the second time. 

3/4 pound leftover cooked pork, cubed (you could use raw, just prep it and marinate it like the chicken below)
1/3 cup vegetable oil (divided)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon finely diced ginger
1 tbls finely minced garlic
1 shredded carrot
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce, can add up to another tbsp but was good with this amount, can also use 1/2 tbsp hoisin and 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce, or just add in some oyster sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce or tamari
2 tsp'ish chili garlic oil (or other hot sauce like sriracha) to your taste
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
4 cups jasmine rice, cooked
2/3 cup finely sliced spring onions (scallions)

Heat half the oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Pour beaten eggs into wok and leave to cook on the base of the wok for 10 seconds before folding egg mixture over onto itself with a spatula and lightly scrambling for about 1 minute or until almost cooked through. Carefully remove omelette from wok with a spatula and drain on kitchen paper. Set aside. I cut it up a bit to make it easier at the end. 

Heat remaining oil in hot wok and stir-fry onion, garlic, ginger and carrots for 30 seconds. Add sugar and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Stir in hoisin sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Toss in rice, cubed pork pieces and reserved omelette and stir-fry, using a spatula to break up the egg into smaller pieces, for 1 minute. Lastly, add spring onions and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds or until well combined and rice is heated through. 

I like to drizzle mine with a bit of sesame oil right before serving. 

For special fried rice, this is what we did. 








For special fried rice, in addition to above, I added about another cup or so of rice and *increased* all the above liquid ingredients by about 1/2. 

1/2 of a small red bell, diced
15 or 16 shitake mushrooms, stemmed, then caps halved or quartered depending on size
1/2 can baby corn, rinsed, drained and then cut up
6 or 7 large shrimp, diced
1 chicken thigh cut in small pieces (1/4" ish) then marinated in a bit of tamari, hoisin, just a touch of sesame oil and some minced ginger for 20 minutes at least. 

Proceed with first paragraph instructions as is. Then,

Heat remaining oil in hot wok and stir-fry onion, garlic, ginger, carrots, red bell, mushrooms for 30 seconds. Add sugar and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Stir in chicken, stir fry for 30 seconds, stir in shrimp, stir for about 15 seconds. Stir in hoisin sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Toss in rice, cubed pork pieces, baby corn and reserved omelette and stir-fry, using a spatula to break up the egg into smaller pieces, for 1 minute. Lastly, add spring onions and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds or until well combined and rice is heated through. 

I like to drizzle mine with a bit of sesame oil right before serving.


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## medtran49 (May 7, 2016)

Obviously, you MUST have everything prepped, measured out and ready to go before you start cooking.  I CANNOT emphasize this enough.


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## GotGarlic (May 7, 2016)

medtran49 said:


> Obviously, you MUST have everything prepped, measured out and ready to go before you start cooking.  I CANNOT emphasize this enough.



Absolutely. I also put ingredients that go in at the same time together into little bowls or piles on my cutting board, to make it easier and quicker to add. Asian cooking goes very quickly! 

Sounds like a delicious dish, medtran


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## Andy M. (May 7, 2016)

GotGarlic said:


> Absolutely. I also put ingredients that go in at the same time together into little bowls or piles on my cutting board, to make it easier and quicker to add. Asian cooking goes very quickly!
> 
> Sounds like a delicious dish, medtran



Yes, and I line them up in recipe order and just go right down the line as I'm cooking.


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## GotGarlic (May 7, 2016)

Andy M. said:


> Yes, and I line them up in recipe order and just go right down the line as I'm cooking.



So do I, for baking and for cooking


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## Dawgluver (May 7, 2016)

That looks yumtious, Med!  I love fried rice!


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## Whiskadoodle (May 7, 2016)

Yes,   homemade fried rice is indeed better than restaurant FR.   And you both created a good recipe.   I use my egg  pan for the egg pancake as I feel I have better control making it.


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## LizStreithorst (May 7, 2016)

Another one I need to save.  I love good fried rice when it's good.  This looks very good.  Thanks for sharing the recipe.


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## medtran49 (May 7, 2016)

This IS really good.  I never, I mean NEVER, like fried rice but I love this one and could eat it every week.  We've had this dish in 2 different variations in 3 weeks.  I even asked to have it on the menu list this time and that says something because I almost never will agree to getting Chinese since about all I liked previously was honey garlic chicken with white rice and that gets old after a while.  It will be going into our definite make again rotation dishes.  I almost like it as much as I like bibimpap, and I LUUVVV bibimpap.  You can even make it vegetarian/vegan if you want, just omit the animal proteins and add more vege.  Hope anybody that makes it loves it as much as we do.  Best thing about it is, cooking goes really fast.  Takes a bit of time for the prep, but no more than you'd wait for takeout, even less if there are 2 of you working on it, and you know exactly what's going into it.


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## Kayelle (May 7, 2016)

Thanks so much Med. Copied and Pasted!


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## medtran49 (Apr 25, 2018)

I just realized that I didn't mention that the rice should be cooked a day ahead at least and that if it's not pretty dry that I spread it out on a cookie sheet to let it dry further before using.


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## Kayelle (Apr 25, 2018)

Reading your recipe again, I realize there are two missing ingredients I must have in my fried rice...celery (with leaves )and peas.


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## medtran49 (Apr 25, 2018)

Well, you can always add what you want, that's the nice thing about fried rice.  I have never seen peas in fried rice, or celery for that matter when Craig has gotten takeout.


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## roadfix (Apr 25, 2018)

Also, your stove should be able to put out and maintain the level of heat needed for good FR.


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## Kayelle (Apr 25, 2018)

medtran49 said:


> Well, you can always add what you want, that's the nice thing about fried rice.  I have never seen peas in fried rice, or celery for that matter when Craig has gotten takeout.



I agree. Takeout fried rice is a joke. There's nothing in it to speak of.
I like some frozen peas in mine for color, and the celery punches up the flavor also.
I like your baby corn idea..something I havn't tried, and have never seen in takeout.
Try bacon sometime..we really like that, but then isn't everything better with bacon?


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## Andy M. (Apr 25, 2018)

I like to use chopped up boneless spareribs as the protein in the FR.  For veggies I usually add peas, sprouts, scallions, onion, carrot...


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## dragnlaw (Apr 25, 2018)

I've had fried rice made for me by an Indonesian/Philippino, Chinese, and a Thai at various times.  (If made by a Japanese friend I honestly have to say I don't remember).  
Due to now living in North America, not all their common vegies are available - so often there are peas, carrots, baby corn (or kernels).  Egg of course, but the other protein is very very lightly added.  

I would say almost all of them were about 75% rice.


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## Kaneohegirlinaz (Apr 25, 2018)

YUM!
I love Fried Rice, but never thought to add the Baby Corn, nice addition Med.
We like lots of goodies in ours, and I make it at home, but never order it out, well, let me rephrase that statement.
In Hawaii, it's a whole different ball of wax.
Fried Rice a lot of times is the main dish, served with maybe just a fried runny egg on top.  Oh baby, that makes for the best breakfast.
And it'll be different everywhere you go.  Basically, it's whatever is leftover from the day before... Teri-Chicken, Char Siu, _*Spam*_, Breakfast Sausage or for us Linguisa, you name it, it can be found in the Fried Rice dishes in Hawaii.  Try stirring in some chopped Napa Cabbage Kim Chee at the end, MMM! or some gochujang or both.
I just did a WWW search and saw a bunch of them with chunked Pineapple in it, no thank you.

Can you tell I'm starting to get homesick?


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## buckytom (Apr 25, 2018)

Now I really have to get out my old wok and reseason it. This looks delicious, thatnks med.

Your special fried rice is what I've had in restaurants as Yangzhou, or Yeung Chow fried rice. Sort of a "house special" kind of thing as each place makes it their own way.


Mmm, now I want some fried rice.


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## Andy M. (Apr 25, 2018)

buckytom said:


> ...Mmm, now I want some fried rice.



Me too. I've already added the ingredients to the shopping list.


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## Cheryl J (Apr 25, 2018)

+2.  I love fried rice and especially love that it's so forgiving as far as ingredients. 

Looks and sounds great med, and I'm with you on the shrimp as a protein.  I think I'll grab a little jar of baby corn too, while I'm at it.


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## dragnlaw (Apr 26, 2018)

Guess what I had for supper last night!


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## buckytom (Apr 26, 2018)

Toasted villagers, dragn?


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## dragnlaw (Apr 26, 2018)

Villagers are soo yesterday, bucky.  Aside from being tough and stringy...

 I'm upper crust all the way - straight for the yummy plump ones!


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## buckytom (Apr 26, 2018)

Oh, ok. Royal fried rice.

Hey, that's a great name for med's special fried rice.

Or, Fried Rice Royale.


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## medtran49 (Apr 26, 2018)

good name BT


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## Kaneohegirlinaz (Apr 26, 2018)

I like it BT!!


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## taxlady (Apr 26, 2018)

Sounds good. Copied and pasted.


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## Kathleen (Aug 14, 2020)

I just said, "Now I want fried rice!"    Like Kayelle, I toss a few peas and carrots in for color.  Fried rice was one of those "cool" college meals back when.  "Want to go for fried rice" was a great way to get a crowd to follow under the guise of dinner.  Cheap and delicious.....

I don't have it nearly as often as I would like these days.  :/


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