food to glow

Chinese Turmeric Fried Rice, served with curls of sesame-scallion omelette, is a delicious way to use up any type of leftover rice. A gently-spiced Food To Glow favourite.

Fried rice is one of those comforting dishes that covers many culinary bases: as a post-pub, sop-up-the-booze snack; a thoughtfully-considered side dish with a larger Chinese meal; as a meal itself, studded with plenty of filling protein, as well as the usual peas, egg and onion.

It’s typical for fried rice to be a catch-all kind of dish, that needs no recipe. Who hasn’t come in late from work, looked at a Tupperware of cooked rice in the fridge and immediately knew what to do? Of course, you reach for the eggs, some onions (ignoring the green sprouts at the top), slightly bendy carrot, soy sauce, and boom! Dinner! You might have free-styled it with some powdered ginger and grated zucchini. Or found an open package of ham and rightly thought, “this’ll do.” And that’s perfectly fine.

We really don’t need a recipe for fried rice, do we?

But what if you want a more thoughtful meal? With the texture, taste and nutritional value of a dish with a higher calling. Chinese Turmeric Fried Rice, in fact.

We aren’t ditching the fridge clear-out though. Bendy carrots, sprouted onion and fridge-cold rice are most welcome in our more considered dish. Most especially the leftover rice. In fact, slightly old rice, rice that might not have even been properly sealed up, is perfect. Slutty domestic goddesses rejoice!

Let’s talk rice

For me, most any cooked rice will do. Sushi rice, brown basmati, regular white. Experts, however, have other opinions. The consensus, when you read around, is that long grain rice is the chosen one. It’s the rice used in southern and eastern China. Long grain, when rinsed before cooking, gives you individual grains of rice that resist the dreaded clumping together when stir frying.

But long grain is a broad church. Felicity Cloake, who perfects recipes for The Guardian, says that the subtle flavour of a good (long-grain) basmati is wasted in this dish. However, jasmine rice (again, a long grain), has a pleasing moistness, even after a spell in the cold. Most “proper” recipes ignore anything wholegrain. I’d say, if you use a shorter grain rice, be prepared for it to get a might mushy and a bit sticky. That won’t be a barrier to really enjoying the dish. But if you want the texture of the dish akin that in a Chinese restaurant, good old long grain is your friend. And if your palate is cool with wholegrain long grain, go for it.

Of course, your fried rice will quite possibly be at the mercy of whatever rice you made the night before. And that is fine.

One thing that is not disputed is that the rice needs to be cold. Freshly cooked, warm rice will give you a gloopy, oily fried rice. Kind of porridgey in texture, what with all of the stirring. You can purposely cook rice just to fry; it doesn’t need to be leftovers. But cold it must be. So, you need to pre-plan.

Unless! Unless you use a couple of pouches of cooked rice (e.g. Tilda brand): 2 pouches makes nearly 4 cups, which is exactly what you need here. Tilda do a great white and brown basmati mix. If you do cook rice on the day (how-to in the recipe card below), dump it onto a couple of trays, fan it with other trays (a workout!) and pop it in the fridge or freezer until cooled. Then toss it through with your fingers to separate the grains, if needed. Whatever you do, don’t use those boil-in-bag things. The rice in these convenient packs is invariably too starchy for decent fried rice.

What’s in this Chinese Turmeric Fried Rice

Some of the usual suspects are in this Chinese Turmeric Fried Rice, but of course I always want to add more veg. And of course, turmeric!

Rice – cold and preferably long grain (see above)

Turmeric – this is not typical but it lends a nice earthiness and great colour. Plus, it’s a good way of deliciously getting in some anti-inflammatory curcumin.

Broccoli, sugar snap peas, carrots, spring onions/scallions, ginger, chilli and garlic – cut about the same size for best results

Light soy sauce (low-sodium if possible) and kecap manis (bought, or here’s my two-ingredient recipe) or Japanese soy sauce – you can use just the former but both together give a nice depth of flavour

Toasted sesame oil – a must for me

Rice vinegar – cuts through the oil in the dish

Egg – this is where I have a bit of fun! See below

So, what’s the deal with the egg?

Most every Chinese fried rice calls for scrambling the egg right in the dish. And that’s great. I love it. In a restaurant, if I’m forced to share, I will eye up the distribution of the eggy bits, giving the evils to anyone who dares have too much. Yes, this is true. I am not proud of this.

But, I know some of us are a bit nervous of scrambling eggs into rice. We fear the egg clumping, white strands separating from the yellow, it all sticking to the pan. Of eggs basically misbehaving. To get around this, and provide a talking point – what is with the weird spiral thingies? – we are making a simple flat omelette. No folding, nothing scary.

To make the flat omelette, all you do is take the eggs, a little 5-spice powder, salt and pepper, add a little water and whisk them up. Pour into a medium hot, oiled pan, throwing on some sesame seeds and a little chopped scallion. Let it cook on the one side until only a tiny bit of wet egg remains in the centre. Then you flip it and let it set for 30 seconds before decanting to a cool plate and rolling into a cosy cylinder. Cut it into pleasing spirals before serving the fried rice. Easy, huh? And you can even make a vegan one by following my Vegan Spanish Omelette recipe (swapping that recipes add-ins for these).

Want even more protein?

For a more filling dish, why not consider adding one of the following?

Cooked prawns

Sautéed tofu or tempeh

Cooked edamame beans

Leftover shredded meats/chicken

Cooked brown lentils or chickpeas

Swap your rice for cooked, cooled quinoa!

What else can I add to my fried rice?

Feel free to really add what you have, such as :

Chopped bell peppers

Sweetcorn

Use regular peas instead of sugar snap peas

Cooked eggplant pieces

Swap out half of the cooked rice for riced cauliflower

Onions – this is typical to use but I didn’t have any on hand for this shoot!

You can also change up the flavour by adding some chopped kimchi at the end (cooking it destroys the gut-friendly enzymes). Or even adding small chunks of fresh pineapple!

 

Here are some other funky Chinese and East Asian recipe to try from Food To Glow.

More in my Recipe Index.

15-Minute Kimchi Fried Rice

Spicy Tofu and Noodle Dan Dan Noodles

Crispy and Sticky Black Pepper Tofu

Baked Tofu Katsu Curry (my daughter thinks this is better than at our favourite Japanese restaurant!)

Tofu and Eggplant Basil-Lime Stir Fry – this is the second recipe I published on Food to Glow – those photos! I still make it 🙂

Korean Sweet Potato Noodle Stir Fry with Marinated Tofu

 

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