Shrimp Fried Rice

 

Fried rice is the Rolls Royce of Chinese carry-out rice. Everybody always wants to upgrade to fried rice when they order from their favorite Chinese take-out place. And when you do that, you’re making the owners at the Chinese restaurant very very happy. Because more often than not, the main ingredient in fried race, is day old rice. (Which means $$$$)

The reason why it’s typically day old rice is because it’s drier and therefore less sticky, making it an optimal ingredient for fried rice. As someone who comes from a culture that worships rice, I understand fried rice on a different level. Wasting rice in any rice based culture is pretty much a sin, harvesting rice is back breaking stuff so nobody wants to see it go to waste. So by making a dish out of day old rice, Chinese cooks were able to make sure this valuable ingredient never goes to waste.

It’s been said that fried rice is said to mimic the diets of Chinese peasants as it basically uses whatever food scraps they have lying around to make the dish. Fried rice is common across Asia, but the fried rice that we know and love is said to have originated in southern China. This makes sense, since southern China is much warmer and ergo an optimal place to grow rice. Northern China’s main crop is wheat, consequently they eat much more noodles and they then fry their noodle scraps (chow mein)

So the key to making good fried rice is making sure that you have all of your ingredients on-hand. Everything needs to come together fairly quickly for it to taste like the real thing. The biggest ingredient here is obviously…you guessed it. The rice. I prefer to make this when we get take-out and we have all that leftover white rice. If you have a rice cooker or access to Chinese style rice, then you can make it at home, but day old rice is the key. The fluffier the rice, the less like fried rice it will taste.

I decided to make shrimp fried rice, because everything tastes better with shrimp. You don’t have to use shrimp here, you can opt in any meat or veggie you want. Plus shrimp is a great source of protein and minerals, so this makes the dish slightly better for you.

 

Ingredients

4 Cups of Day Old Chinese White Rice ( I just use takeout rice)

2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce

1 Tsp. Fish Sauce

2 Eggs Beaten (fried and set aside)

1/2 Cup of Frozen Peas (optional)

1/2 Cup of Frozen Chopped Carrots (optional)

1 Lb. of Cooked Shrimp

2 Tbsp. Peanut Oil

1/4 Cup of Green Onions

1/2 Cup of Chicken Broth

Method

Step 1: Heat oil in a large wok, until it’s almost smoking

Step 2: Then add your rice

Step 3: Add your chicken broth

Step 4: Add your soy sauce and fish sauce

Step 5: Add your fried egg and stir into the mixture.

Step 6: Now add your frozen veggies, keep stirring.

*The rice should be a light brown color, taste the rice, if it doesn’t have that salty fried rice flavor, add more soy sauce.

Step 7: Add your cooked shrimp.

Step 8: Stir in green onions.

Step 9: Serve immediately.