4 Levels of Fried Rice: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

Hi, I'm Emily and I'm a level one chef. I'm Lorenzo and I'm a level two chef. Hello, I'm King. I am a chef instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education and have been a chef for 20 years, this is my hangover

fried

rice

, basically I would love to level up one day but this is not the recipe that will get me there. I was born into a fun combination where you couldn't mess up and still be good. Every time we have something in the refrigerator, we put it together and make

fried

rice

, today's is a little elevated.

The first element of fried rice is that I like to use day-old rice, it's a little dry so it's not sticky, you don't want to have it. a lumpy fried rice sometimes you don't have old rice but you still have a hangover so what to do in this case will be a big race this is our long grain rice Dale we will cook today so what I have here is just the standard type of rice from your uncle. I'm going to mix it with water, so I'm going to bring this rice to a boil. Come on, come on, I'm going to cover this and bring it to a simmer now and I'm just going to let it finish for a few minutes and my rice is good, look I have two types of proteins.

I have mm. I love spam, so this is spam, kind of like a pork sausage. I'm going to cut it into slices. I put it in my fried rice. I have some larger pieces and I'm going to make these with some smaller pieces. A little spam surprise and everyone, today I have 10 giant shrimp. Remove the heads from the tails. I just like to squeeze the end and take it out in one go these are really plump and delicious too we're going to devein them I'm going to put that in there we're not going to eat that and a shrimp you're clean put a little bit of lemon juice on it. just marinate it a little bit, two cloves of garlic, add salt and pepper and mash it now let's add this delicious sesame oil and I have dill.

Bill's fun mix all this smells great and there you have marinated shrimp. I have balls, that's it. It's really not for beginners I'm just going to break six eggs complicated procedure I'm going to try a ninja I'm going to play the ninja yes pepper salt and I'm going to beat this that's that and these are my proteins from your fried rice now this is easy, this is a Chinese sausage that is so delicious, oh my goodness, we are going to cut this into small rings, it is cooked, I can take a bite of this if I want to add it next, we are going to cut the chicken into slices. about the same size as our shrimp and our sausage, okay, vegetable, this is chives, quick and easy, I'll save them for later, the chives, I'm actually just going to use this as a topping at the end, but I'm going to chop it up.

Now because now is as good a time as any, take advantage of carpe diem day to sauté all my vegetables. I like to use these lower portions or my knife skills are amazing. Yes, just a little sophisticated. It's nice to have it a little fancy sometimes as a side dish. I'm just going to use the green top of this guy, it's a nice, thin bias slice, and this is just going to be that nice little accent on the top of the damn plate and the next thing I'm going to do is just cut it off. take a limb off here, peel this carefully, great, my ginger, I have some frozen peas, we have delicious crispy water chestnuts, let's make garlic, I'll take my chef's knife and crush it, slice it, chop it a little, I have a little minced garlic that I had previously chopped.

I like mashed garlic a little better because if you cut it too small, the garlic bits will burn the garlic. I have two carrots. Do I have to peel this carrot? I never do it. I never really do it. just wash it okay easy shit carrots are hard they're small and rolly something that makes life a lot easier is cutting things in half to have a flat surface so they don't roll oh did you just give well? tip for I'm going to watch this Emily, you have to work a little less on your knife skills because I want to cook evenly with everything else and I think we're almost ready to go here and then I have green beans, but maybe three times and abayas and I have oh wow I love mushrooms these are pretty big so all I'm going to do is cut this in half now okay napa cabbage I'm just going to slice it and I mean, to me, that's the staple of fried rice we're actually only going to use half my name gives me gas so i understood a little bit, you know, it follows the lines of the onion that i just cut along with the onion yeah, really it gets me to work today easily so I have my onion all chopped, the edamame has already been peeled so they are ready and we have our vegetables, come on friends let's do it, the next thing I'm going to do is cook all my things together.

I'll make some fried rice. I'm going to cook our rice in a wok, so we're going to use canola oil and I'm going to put it in my mom and then I'm going to put the garlic in it. I like to start with the egg, no. Be worried if it browns a little. It's delicious. There is a fine line between toasted and burnt. We don't want to get burned. We want toast. They are starting to turn a little brown, translucent and delicious. They look good, you look fabulous. I'm gonna throw. With my garlic and most of my family, I'll start trying to brown that spam with a little more vegetable oil to get our Chinese sauces, you'll add more flavors and have to poke them a little each time. you make sausages you want the fat to flavor the onions to play with the garlic which in turn will flavor everything else we put in here and now you can see the juices bubbling inside the chicken it takes a little while to cook so let's put some chicken in there, my sausage that's already cooled just to make it fancy, we're just going to cut it on an angle, okay, no Chinese sausage prepared, this is starting to look really delicious.

I have a lot of ginger in terms of the smell, now let's say hello to the shrimp, they've been marinating a little bit because I have lemon juice, so you can make them rubbery if you overcook them, so stay here, don't leave your hand, look To these guys, my biggest problem when it comes to cooking is that I'm incredibly impatient. I can see the shrimp changing now from that opaque color that is starting to turn pink which means they are cooking and it smells really good guys we haven't gotten to that point yet where you can smell it through the videos , but soon.

Will I take it out if you think I didn't cook it enough? It's still cooking in this beautiful bowl full of bubbles, so this was half a large onion. I'm just going to put these guys, hey, red pepper flakes, which one is the green one? onions in my garlic sesame oil shiitake mushrooms water chestnuts a little salt a little pepper napa cabbage rice wine vinegars everything is pretty cooked we look very good now let's get to our rice I'm going to add a little garlic powder and also a little bit of salt might not be the ideal rice for this situation, but it's better than nothing, let's let this warm up again and I'm just throwing my frozen peas in here and you'll jump right into this, I'm just mixing it up. together we are going to put a little oil here eggs uh it will also be my dressing and then mix our egg putting a little beans mommy the sauces that I have here are sesame oil not much just a little bit a little bit of us, a good eyeball, You wet sauce love this to add my eggs to.

I'm going to try to put eggs everywhere as much as I can because the egg makes everything delicious, the egg does a lot of the hard work. work on this right now hello lovely juices what-what-what what-what-what Wow yowza friends, now warm up, yes, don't cook either, yes, and one of my secret weapons, crab paste, a little, is very useful. I think this is almost ready, that's our fried rice. I'm going to put it on a plate and add some toppings now to have my delicious Spam Egg Fried Rice, get a little bit of everything, green beans, those shrimp gems, sausage and chicken.

We're going to make it now with our Japanese mayonnaise, I used a little bit of sriracha, oh yeah, now I have a little more egg, yum, yum, my Chinese sausage, delicious furikake seaweed, sesame seeds and this one has bonito flakes, which It's a smoked fish, shave very thin, folks. know me, I'm going to put some ketchup on the side, but you don't have to, this is my fried rice for when you feel ruined by a hangover or just whenever you want it and this is my fried rice and this is my fried rice I hope that tastes as good as it looks because I think it looks great, just sing typically to be humble, it would be a dish.

I give it a 10, why not? You know, that shrimp mouthfeel of the crab rhythm that you take in, you taste every little component that's in it, which is great. I'm going to eat another bite. Fried rice is a dish that's really only limited by your imagination and what's left in your refrigerator. Let's take a look at how each of our chefs works. Approached this very varied dish Emily chilled her rice briefly, which helps keep the rice grains separate as they condense a little as they cool and become hard, and therefore keep the individual grains that can be topped with flavorful fats and seasonings when frying.

Lorenzo and King took out their rice overnight, which has the advantage that some of the water evaporates very slowly under refrigeration, so the rice was even tougher and will stay separated even better. Emily's protein was spam and spam eggs are a mix of ham and pork. If that sounds redundant, let me explain what pork is. We call meat from any part of the pig ham, however, it is pork that comes from a specific part of the pig, its hind leg, there may be other meats in there too. I don't know, that's what spams, you're not supposed to know.

Pork and ham are ground together mixed with sugar or salt water, usually potato starch and sodium nitrate, which gives Span its distinctive pink color and acts as an excellent antimicrobial and cured meats, it also retards rancidity. so that unpleasant flavors or odors do not develop. Lorenz I used shrimp and Chinese sausage since their shrimp proteins add a wonderful sea

food

flavor, while Chinese sausage is a broad term for various sausages that tend to be dry, have slight sweet and salty flavors and a very fine grind, too. They are rich. in fat, so they transmit the flavors very well.

Kim used sliced ​​white chicken meat, which has less fat and reduces connective tissue and myoglobin, which is why it is so light in color. She also uses Chinese sausage and shrimp, as does our level 2 chef Lorenzo, including all three chefs. garlic and onion, both of which have flavor compounds that become milder when cooked in oil. When you sauté garlic and onion and oil, you extract the lipid-soluble flavor compounds and infuse the rest of the dish with these aromatics as the oil disperses throughout. Three also used soy sauce, which is a fermented product of soybeans, is dark in color and very salty.

Each also incorporated sesame oil, which is also dark and has a toasty, nutty sesame flavor. It can be a little overwhelming, so you'll want to use it. in moderation because it is powerful, guys, you don't want it to spill, prepare everything. Emily was the only chef to add ginger, which has a distinctive flavor and adds a slight kick due to the presence of ginger, all of which is a chemical relative to capsaicin and chilies and pepper in black pepper, she also added carrots to give it color and slightly crispy carrots retain their bright orange color when cooked in oil because the oil protects the beta-carotene from oxidation and blanching, added green peas that were frozen.

Frozen vegetables are great to use. in a dish like fried rice because they retain their shape and nutritional quality well. Lorenzo added carrots and napa cabbage. Napa cabbage is rich in vitamin C, has a good amount of calcium, and has a slightly aromatic flavor unless overcooked, when it can have a more pungent sulfur. e' flavor because it contains hydrogen sulfide, it quickly sautéed your rice without long cooking so it wasn't a problem here you added fresh shiitake mushrooms which will add moisture to your rice and water chestnuts. Water chestnuts contain cross-forming phenolic compounds. It binds to your cells and strengthens cell walls and keeps water chestnuts persistently crispy even after prolonged cooking.

King added shelled edamame, which is fresh soybeans for an extra touch of crunchy protein and green color. He also seasoned it with oyster sauce made from fermented oysters and fish. sauce traditionally aged in barrels for two months, all three chefs added eggs, which are a traditional part of fried rice. Emily and Kings scrambled their eggs with the rice while Lorenzo cooked his separately and added them at the end, making Lorenzo's eggs feel like an Addition rather than an addition, oops, Emily and Lorenzo used non-stick pans. The non-stick coating on pans of this type is made of Teflon, which is like a plastic because it is a polymer of long carbon chains stabilized with fluorine atoms, this works well and you won't have any starchy rice sticking to the bottom of the pan. frying pan King used a wok, which is a more traditional method forcook fried rice dishes.

The walks conduct heat extremely well both in the center, which is the part of the pan that receives direct heat, as well as around the slanted part. sides of the dish keeping all the ingredients warm, all three cooked over high heat for a short period of time Emily garnished with crispy green scallions and pepper sauce along with her ever-present ketchup, so we won't be disappointed that it's tangy, tangy and Tasty, garnished with Lorenzo. with Scrambled Eggs and Scallions King also used a pepper sauce and crispy raw green scallions, but added a visual and flavorful addition by using Japanese mayonnaise which is made with only egg yolk as opposed to American mayonnaise which usually uses the whole egg which certainly added.

Visual Appeal of King's Fried Rice There really isn't a right or wrong way to make fried rice, it's often just a No matter what's available at the time hunger strikes, next time you want to clean up the leftovers, we hope you Be inspired by our chefs.