A foodie secret for you.

[maddmaxx ★]

I did not know this till today when my son taught it to me.  When you want to make fried rice at home you should make the rice the day before and freeze it overnight.  The restaurants do.

Why?

Because rice tends to stick together more than you want in fried rice so by freezing it and then thawing it out the next day you can separate it into individual grains that don't stick or clump.  Voila, restaurant quality ham fried rice for dinner.

This works whether you have a great rice cooker or just boil the stuff.

[Chris...]

Hmm, I thought everyone knew that

[shootingstar]

20 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I did not know this till today when my son taught it to me.  When you want to make fried rice at home you should make the rice the day before and freeze it overnight.  The restaurants do.

Why?

Because rice tends to stick together more than you want in fried rice so by freezing it and then thawing it out the next day you can separate it into individual grains that don't stick or clump.  Voila, restaurant quality ham fried rice for dinner.

This works whether you have a great rice cooker or just boil the stuff.

Some truth to that, though I've never used that technique.

[maddmaxx ★]

4 minutes ago, Chris... said:

Hmm, I thought everyone knew that

I didn't.

[The_Karen_Cooper_Incident]

5 hours ago, Chris... said:

Hmm, I thought everyone knew that

Yea, I knew that but didn't. 

I'm insane like that. 

[Dottleshead ★]

10 hours ago, Chris... said:

Hmm, I thought everyone knew that

In jest?  Because I did not.

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

I knew about cooking the rice the day before but not the freezing part. I just stick it in the fridge overnight. My fried rice always turned out fine. 

[ChrisL]

I had heard that too but I vividly remember the rice going straight from the steamer into the wok and my mom made bomb nasi goereng (Indonesian fried rice).   

I read somewhere fried rice was a way to use old rice.

[groupw]

We try to make the rice the day before and refrigerate. It's definitely less sticky and doesn't get mushy when frying. 

[Zephyr]

A real foodie would never make fried rice.  

Restaurants 1/2 cook their risotto early too

[bikeman564™]

14 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I didn't.

me neither

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, Zephyr said:

A real foodie would never make fried rice.  

Restaurants 1/2 cook their risotto early too

I don't know.  My son is a real foodie who travels all over the world and sometimes schedules his stops just to visit a particular restaurant.  We can hardly sit down for a meal without first having pictures taken of all the food.  He's been cooking all sorts of Asian dishes while he was here.

The fried rice was a good way to use up some leftovers.

[ChrisL]

Fried rice is one of those things that seems super easy but isn’t.  I still can’t get it like my moms but am close.

I also remember my mom always rinsed rice first, cooked it slowly in water and then transferred it to a steamer.  It wasn’t sticky that way.  I don’t see people rinse rice first.

[shootingstar]

9 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I don't know.  My son is a real foodie who travels all over the world and sometimes schedules his stops just to visit a particular restaurant.  We can hardly sit down for a meal without first having pictures taken of all the food.  He's been cooking all sorts of Asian dishes while he was here.

The fried rice was a good way to use up some leftovers.

Glad to hear he's so motivated to prep some interesting dishes for your family! Hope you guys pickup some tips before he goes back to China to work.

[jsharr ★]

I am more of an eatie than a foodie.

[Dirtyhip]

2 hours ago, Zephyr said:

A real foodie would never make fried rice.  

Restaurants 1/2 cook their risotto early too

I was wondering how they cook that so quickly. It takes me a long while to make this at home.

[shootingstar]

2 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

Fried rice is one of those things that seems super easy but isn’t.  I still can’t get it like my moms but am close.

I also remember my mom always rinsed rice first, cooked it slowly in water and then transferred it to a steamer.  It wasn’t sticky that way.  I don’t see people rinse rice first.

When I cooked rice, I wash and rinse rice about 3-4 times before flipping on the rice cooker switch.  All of us learned this as teens so long ago. It's to rinse out the extra impurities and extra starch from the rice grains.  A cousin who immigrated as an adult from China, told me, that in hard times, the starch water was saved and boiled to feed very young children...to sort of give them some sort of carb / "fatten" them.  This would be in times of near starvation...which for many of us is foreign unless one used the food bank.

[Dirtyhip]

I thought rinsing rice is a pre step that most did. I rinse the rice and inspect before I cook. 

[ChrisL]

1 minute ago, shootingstar said:

When I cooked rice, I wash and rinse rice about 3-4 times before flipping on the rice cooker switch.  All of us learned this as teens so long ago. It's to rinse out the extra impurities and extra starch from the rice grains.  A cousin who immigrated as an adult from China, told me, that in hard times, the starch water was saved and boiled to feed very young children...to sort of give them some sort of carb / "fatten" them.  This would be in times of near starvation...which for many of us is foreign unless one used the food bank.

That makes sense on the starch water but I never heard that. I never cooked rice as a youngster, no need with my mom around but I remember her rinsing it.  She never used a rice cooker until the last few years (pre stroke) when it was just her. 

[ChrisL]

8 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

I thought rinsing rice is a pre step that most did. I rinse the rice and inspect before I cook. 

I don’t make rice often but when I do, I normally just stick it in the rice cooker with water.  Lately I have been working on my fried rice so am making the rice like mom did.

[12string]

You don't have to do this if you friate the soil before planting your rice

[shootingstar]

41 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I don't know.  My son is a real foodie who travels all over the world and sometimes schedules his stops just to visit a particular restaurant.  We can hardly sit down for a meal without first having pictures taken of all the food.  He's been cooking all sorts of Asian dishes while he was here.

The fried rice was a good way to use up some leftovers.

I'm certain your son might be dismissive of this blog. He shouldn't be.  https://thewoksoflife.com/?s=fried+rice

I have looked at some recipes and they do indeed look like the real deal. It's a collaborative blog of a Chinese-American family and clearly written in a language that shows assimilated Chinese but still with a strong, enthusiastic voice/respect for traditional dishes with some innovative dishes in a exploratory way.  I can tell by some of the blog post stories....it has a good immigrant plus American-born Chinese multi-generation feel from a foodie perspective.  That's what it feels like to live in my world --growing up as a child and as a foodie. Very broad, innovative and exploratory. Which includes some meat.

It might be the type of rice, which should be long grain, not the Japanese glutinous type used for making sushi for starting off with cooked rice.  I'm not familiar with steaming the rice after partial cooking that Chris' mom did.

Texture of cooked Asian rice never should be like risottos. I find the cooking technique for risotto fascinating..more watery to me.

For whatever reason, if you go to a Chinese wedding banquet (which easily happens food-wise, for Chinese North American weddings), fried rice is served as one of the final courses, often 6, 8 or 12 course banquet.  I'm not sure why. 

The recipe for fried rice with Chinese dried sausages I liked as a kid.  We used less ingredients:    rice, chopped cooked Chinese dried sausage, eggs, green peas, green onion and soy sauce.  To save time and money, she used chopped up cooked weiners. Or even try it with sliced cooked European sausage.