My Homemade Fried Rice Best... Very Delicious!!!
(ham, bean sprouts, green onion, yellow onion, mixed frozen vegetables, egg, peanut oil, salt, Chinese rice wine, chicken broth)

The secret to great fried rice is NO SOY SAUCE!!! Ironically, every recipe online calls for soy sauce. For years I was unsuccessful at making delicious fried rice. Something was wrong and I just couldn't figure out what. Why was my rice so different from the restaurant's great rice? Sometimes my rice was inedible and I had to trash it. Usually it was edible, but loathsome to finish. I was ruining my rice with soy sauce. I realized that all the recipes online and in cook books calling for soy sauce were terrible. Kikkoman's is great soy sauce, but not for rice. Look at my homemade rice pictured above. The browning of the rice was done with my wok at high temperature. Most recipes tell you to add soy sauce to color the rice. Yeah, and you'll totally ruin the flavor.

I've also learned that too much sesame oil causes upset stomach. You can add 1/8 teaspoons if you'd like to the rice BUT NO MORE. Sesame oil is strong and more than a few drops will dominate the flavor of the rice. And finally, I learned that sugar doesn't taste good in my rice. You'll find recipes online calling for as much as 1/4 cup of soy sauce in your rice. That's a sure way to ruin your rice. Today, I don't use either soy sauce, sugar or sesame oil in my friend rice.

You're going to love this rice. As you can see in the photo above, I made the rice nice and brown without soy sauce by just browning the rice in the wok with the wok's heat.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked white rice that has been allowed to cool (regular or Jasmine rice. I use regular usually)

• 2 Tbsp peanut oil (or extra virgin olive oil)

• 1 egg

• 2 cloves diced fresh garlic

• 1/4 t dry sherry or Chinese rice wine

• 1/2 yellow or white onion, diced fine

• 1-2 scallions, diced

• 3/4 tsp salt (measure with the 1/2 tsp spoon and then use the 1/4 tsp for the rest; thus equaling 3/4 tsp total)

• 1 dash of white pepper (a dash is 1/8 tsp)

• 1/4 c cooked ham, diced (you can use any type of savory meat. I don't care for beef in rice though)

• 1/4 cup cooked carrots and peas (I just add a handful of frozen mixed vegetables to the wok. It might have a little corn or other kinds of beans mixed with it. That's fine.)

• 1/2 tsp of Accent (MSG) - Don't use it if you get headaches or aren't sure. I love it and add it to my rice and egg rolls.

• OPTIONAL: I DON'T use any sugar lately, but you may want to add 1 tsp of brown sugar for flavor. When rice is done, add some sugar to a small cup of rice and taste to see if you like it. That's a good way to test anything that you want to add. That way if it doesn't taste good, you've only ruined a small cup of rice.

Directions:

• In a wok, heat peanut oil over high-heat until just before smoking (oil will shimmer). I use a Breville brand wok, model TC 30 (which I bought on Amazon.com). I like it a lot. It uses standard 120 VAC for power. For fried rice I set the heat knob to 12 (14 is the hottest).

• Add onions and garlic and sauté.

• Once onions appear transparent (cooked), break the egg right into wok and gently scramble with spatula (it doesn't have to be scrambled much).

• Dump cold, dry, white rice into wok and break apart clumps. Stir-fry mixture for several minutes until you see a nice browning on the rice surface. I wait and turn it about every 30 seconds to give the rice time to brown.

• Add the meat, green onions, white pepper, Chinese rice wine (or sherry), mixed vegetables, and salt to wok. Cook until heated and well-mixed (about 2 minutes).

• Again, adding MSG (sold as ACCENT in the spice section of larger groceries stores.) Food flavor enhancer is optional, but I think it's great stuff despite the ongoing battle against it by health Advocates).

Helpful Notes:

• NO SOY SAUCE. Frying the rice gives it its browned color. Soy sauce always ruins my rice flavor.

• NO EXTRAS TO BASIC RECIPE. This is another way to ruin the flavor, that ism by adding a bunch of extra foods (which will alter your flavor significantly). This is America, of course, and you can do what ever you want; but if you want to make the delicious tasting recipe that I made in my picture above, then don't add a bunch more things unless you're deliberately experimenting. My rice comes out excellent when I follow the recipe and QUANTITY.
  
  When I went back to make my perfect rice one day it was terrible. I had added a bunch of extra bean sprouts that I didn't want to waste. I also added one cup of bland ground chicken in addition to the diced ham. This changed my rice's flavor so much that it needed more salt. It still didn't taste right, so I added some pepper and ACCENT (MSG). Then I added some Brown Sugar (1/2 teaspoon). Then it needed more salt. It all came out terrible. I've learned to avoid adding a bunch of extra things because each item changes the flavor from the intended recipe.
  
  SO, HAVING SAID THAT... this basic recipe is truly the best rice I've ever tasted of my own rice cooking. It's restaurant quality all the way; but you cannot veer from the recipe. From now on I follow it to a T. I've heard many people say that fried rice is great because you can just add yesterday's leftovers. Truthfully, that isn't a recipe. Sometimes it works out and oftentimes it does not.

• Be careful which brand of Peanut Oil you use. I love the SPECTRUM brand that comes in smaller glass bottles, but the oil has never been refined. It is organic. I can smell the fruity peanut flavor in the oil. As a general rule, the big gallon of peanut oil won't have that peanutty flavor it's supposed to. If in doubt, buy a small bottle of a particular brand if possible to see if it has the wonderful peanut oil smell for your cooking. I think all of the smaller bottles do; but none of the gallon-sized jugs. You can even start cooking the rice with extra virgin olive oil (I use CARBONELL brand) and then just add a Tablespoon or two toward the end of the stir-fry just for flavoring. I do this sometimes when I'm running low on peanut oil. You can also use corn oil as your main oil to cook and then peanut oil to flavor.

• Go easy on the salt. I just use Morton regular table salt. If the rice tastes a bit bland, then add a couple dashes at a time and keep tasting and mixing until you like it. You may want to only add 1/2 tsp of salt and then add more accordingly. I've made the rice enough to know that 3/4 tsp is perfect for my taste buds (this is for 1 cup of uncooked rice; which is 2 cups when cooked). What is do is first measure 1/2 teaspoon of salt and add it; then I measure an additional 1/4 teaspoon and add that too... so now my total is 3/4 teaspoons of salt to the rice.

• I use a rice cooker. My brand is made by ZOJIRUSHI, model: NS-VGC05. It's really great, compact and made for college dorms or small kitchens. It has a 3 cup white rice capacity (2 cups mixed rice) and even has a nice carrying handle that flips down when not in use. I really like it a lot. I got it from Amazon.com online. When my rice is done I press the "RESET" button on the unit which turns it off instead of keeping it warm. I open the lid to allow the rice to cool for about 45 minutes to an hour. Then I make my fried rice. Cold rice works better when frying. The clumps will break up once it starts frying in the wok, easily broken apart with a spatula.

• NOTE: When I first got the rice cooker my rice came out MUSHY. If this happens you used too much water. What I did was only add water to the SUSHI RICE line (which is a bit lower than the WHITE RICE line in the bowl). The bowl inside the rice cooker has markings on it to show how much water to add per cups of rice. This is what I am referring too here. My rice comes out perfect now. Make sure to rinse your rice cooker bowl after each batch of rice. I just rinse it out with water.

• When cooking with the wok, don't add too much oil unless you want oily rice. I never measure because I've cooked rice so much. I just pour until there's a a nice little puddle in the center of the wok about 3 inches round. You want about 2 to 3 Tablespoons of oil. You can use corn oil or extra virgin olive oil, but peanut oil has a wonderful robust aroma and adds flavor to the rice.

• Some people are allergic to peanut products and it can kill them. A man asked a deli if they cooked their egg rolls with peanut oil and they said no. He bought some egg rolls and died after eating them. What they didn't tell the man was that they used a little peanut butter to seal their egg rolls. One man was allergic to seafood and died just from breathing the steam from a nearby meal. Some people are allergic to yeast, seafood, peanut products, et cetera.

• I love MSG (which comes in a little container at any grocery store called ACCENT. You've probably seen or used it and didn't even know it was MSG (monosodium glutamate). ACCENT contains 60% less sodium than salt. If you've never tasted MSG, you'll love the flavor. I add about 1/2 teaspoon to my rice. MSG gives some people bad headaches and a lot of Chinese restaurants advertise that they don't use it. I WANT THE MSG!

• Soy sauce will ruin your rice, guaranteed. It happens every time. even the smallest amount of Kikkoman soy sauce will totally change and ruin the rice's natural flavor. Soy sauce is fermented soy beans and is pungent in flavor. Even a little soy sauce quickly darkens the rice and dominates the flavor. I read a lot of adding soy sauce for color. Forget about that... just brown your rice well at the beginning before you add the final ingredients. Enjoy!

My Homemade Fried Rice and Chinese Egg Rolls

Oyster Beef Stir-fry

Beef Chuck Tender Roast