The following are three variations of Golden Fried Rice based on the traditional recipe —ketchup fried rice, Buffalo chicken fried rice (with a glorious swirl of ranch on top), and finally, asparagus with XO sauce fried rice—all using ingredients available in the fridge. Read on for the step-by-step methods.
Golden Fried Rice: It involves coating the rice in egg yolks before stir-frying. You want every grain to be covered in a thin layer of egg, which provides umami flavor and also helps keep the grains from sticking together.
For the rice, you will need about three cups of cooked jasmine rice, two eggs, about four cloves of garlic, a one-inch knob of ginger, two sprigs of scallions, and half a small onion. You can also use any day-old cooked rice you have. Before firing up the pan, prep and cut the scallions, garlic, ginger, and onion. Next, crack the all-important eggs, making sure to separate the whites into a separate container and season them with salt, and add a little oil (since an egg’s fat is in the yolks, you will need a bit of added fat to scramble the whites on their own). The yolks, on the other hand, go into the rice, and mix them well to ensure the grains are covered.
Now, it is time to stir-fry, and it is going to happen quickly. Grab salt and sugar, and get the pan as hot as it can get.
Once the oil is hot enough, the ginger goes in first, followed by the scallions and the onions. Next comes the egg-yolk rice, and then the garlic, sugar, and salt (use a 2:1 salt-to-sugar ratio). Sugar is added to savory dishes in Chinese cooking to make them taste more savory. Push the rice to one side of the pan, move it so the empty spot is right over the heat, and add oil to that spot. In go the egg whites, which you should scramble, break up, and then mix into the rice. Give it a taste to see if the seasoning needs to be adjusted, and if so, add a little more salt and sugar in this case.
And there it is—golden fried rice.
Ketchup Fried Rice: Probably one of the most elegant elevations of this basic fried rice recipe. For this variation, all you need to do is squirt a generous amount of ketchup onto the rice after the egg whites have been mixed in at the end, letting the sugars in the ketchup caramelize in the heat of the pan. Mix it in and the rice is ready to enjoy.
Buffalo Chicken Fried Rice: Take hot sauce, diced cooked chicken, and ranch. You will want to use one to two cups of cooked vegetables or meat in proportion to the three cups of rice and two egg yolks. In the pan, push the rice-and-egg white mixture to the side and add oil to the empty spot, using it to warm the diced chicken. Then, toss it all together, drizzle on the hot sauce and the ranch, and also add some ketchup and paprika for color. After giving it a taste, introduce a little more ranch and sugar. It all gets plated and topped off with a swirl of ranch, precisely dispensed from a squeeze bottle.
Asparagus with XO Sauce Fried Rice: After prepping the asparagus and cooking it, make the fried rice, and then push it to the side just like with previous iterations. Add the asparagus and mix it in, use chopsticks to add in some XO sauce (be sure to save a little for garnish), toss it together, and then check your work.
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