Fried Rice is the Chinese version of casserole. Basically, its a great way to use up leftover bits in the refrigerator. My ingredients change based on what vegetables and meat I have on hand.
The only 3 constants are:
1) Rice
2) Fish Sauce
3) Chinese Sausage “Lap Cheong”
The above photo includes 1/4 of a red bell pepper, frozen peas/carrots, 2 eggs, 1/4 of a red onion, lap cheong (Chinese sausage). Sometimes I use bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, baby corn, pork, shrimp, chicken, ground beef, scallops…well, you get the picture. I’ve written a recipe for fried rice already, so instead of another recipe, I’m going to talk about some of the secrets that make the absolutely best fried rice in the world. I might repeat some of what I’ve written earlier, but its worth the read.
Secret #1: The Rice Just freshly cooked rice is hot, steamy, very moist and a little sticky. All of those things would make a very clumpy and soggy fried rice. Thats why day-old rice makes the best fried rice (storing in the refrigerator dries out the rice). My fried rice is flaky, light - which allows the individual flavors of the ingredients to really shine through. I almost always use Jasmine Rice for fried rice. If I want to make fried rice and don’t happen to have day-old rice on hand, here’s what I do: Make a batch of rice, except use 1/4 to 1/3 less water. This creates a rice that is a bit drier. Once the rice is done cooking, spread it out on a baking sheet so cool it off and let the steam (moisture) escape. Don’t try to fry the rice until its completely cool. You can put the baking sheet in the refrigerator, freezer or open window to expedite the process.
Secret #2: The Fish Sauce Many of my non-Asian friends will respond with “ewwwww…..fish sauce?” But let me tell you, most dishes served in a Thai or Vietnamese restaurant contain fish sauce. Its like the SE Asian version of salt. Plus, do you know what Worchestershire Sauce is made of?!?! Just like anchovy paste in Italian cooking, a little goes a long ways and once you cook it in a dish, I’ll bet you $10 that you can’t even pick out the taste of it. I use a brand called “Three Crabs”
A sign of good fish sauce is the color. You want to buy a brand that is tea-colored, which signifies that it probably came from the first pressing (best quality). Now, why the brand is called Three Crabs when the fish sauce doesn’t even contain crabs is a mystery. If the fish sauce is any darker, like the color of coca cola, don’t buy it. Ok, so why do I use fish sauce and what does it taste like? Well first lets talk about what it smells like. No. Let not. I’m not going to kid you. It stinks. Don’t even try. But for some mysterious reason (and especially since you only use a few shakes from the bottle in the dish) your final cooked dish will smell nothing like it. Taste: pure on your tongue is very pungent. However once you start adding different flavor notes: like sour (lime), sweet (sugar), spicy (chili) - it transports you into another dimension - many call it “umami“. I use it because it rounds out the flavors - giving the dish a hit of salty/sweet that I can’t replicate with sugar and salt. I add the fish sauce to the fried rice the same time I add the other seasonings, about 1/2 tsp at a time until it tastes just right. Not too salty. Not too pungent. You want to make sure that you have big “wok fry” motions to get the fish sauce evenly dispersed throughout the dish. Last thing you want is one of your guests taking a bite and getting KO’d by a shot of fish sauce.
Secret #3: The Chinese Sausage Its like pancetta in Italian cooking, where you render the fat (a.k.a. low heat and melt the fat). The fat is where all the flavor is hidden. Chinese sausage also is described as having “umami”. Its preserved like Italian sausages so they last quite a while in the refrigerator. I dice the sausage into 1/4″ pieces, put them in the warm wok on low heat and just leave it alone for a few minutes. You’ll be rewarded with rich, flavorful fat oozing out - this is what you’ll use to fry the rest of the ingredients of the fried rice in place of oil. 
(see all those pockets of flavorful fat?!)
Secret #4: The Heat Once you add your rice to the wok, crank up the heat to high. Your wok or saute pan has to be so hot that it heats up every single grain of rice through to the core. The heat does two things: helps meld the flavors together to create a cohesive dish and evaporate any extra moisture from the rice and liquid seasonings (soy/fish sauce/wine). Your fried rice is done with the grains practically dance off the wok.
Secret #5: Storing and Re-heating Store leftover fried rice tightly covered in the refrigerator. The rice will dry out further just by being in the refrigerator, however it will taste just as good the next day. The secret is to wet your hands and “flick” or “splash” water onto the fried rice, cover, and microwave on high. The microwave will heat up the water, turn it into steam and basically re-steam the rice. Don’t use too much water, just maybe a teaspoon or so. For the recipe - use this as a guideline, but feel free to substitute meats/seafood/vegetables. All you need to know to make the most delicious fried rice are the secrets in this post! Enjoy!
April 10th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
my husband LOVES fried rice…he always substitutes it for the white rice in restaurants. i have tried to make it but it is never quite right. maybe with your tips i can make a better version, thanks! i like the lap cheong sausage just steamed on top of some jasmine rice!
April 10th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Thanks for the secrets
I do not have #2, and #3…so…no best chinese fried rice for me….
April 11th, 2007 at 6:13 am
I am the same with using whatever veg i have in the crisper. My favourite Chinese fried rice is Charsiu fried rice. I love the sweet flavour of the charsiu.
I am yet to try some lap cheong sausage. My oriental store do keep these in stock so i will get some later this week. I have been meaning to get some in a while now but always forget them.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:43 am
Mae-I love Charsiu too…I’m looking for a good recipe to make since I can’t buy it fresh where I live.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Cindy- Sometimes when I make white rice in the rice cooker, I throw in a couple of lap cheong links in - it flavors the rice as it cooks.
Tigerfish- I think I remember you are Singaporean….do you use Fish sauce in your cuisine as a regular spice?
April 12th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
I’ve never tried the secrets of fish sauce! Having been born and raised on rice and such, I’ll have to give that a go. One of my favourite versions of fried rice include egg whites, pickled turnip (’choi bow’ in cantonese), lots of ginger, and finely cut chinese broccoli.
cheers,
Lindsay.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
You are SO right about fish sauce and fried rice! That is the key ingredient, and not soy sauce as people commonly use!
April 16th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I just made fried rice for the first time the other day. My friend had been talking about Pineapple Fried Rice for ages. She didn’t really have a recipe, just some guidelines, so I had no idea how it would turn out. Delish!
I didn’t have day old rice, I spread it on a sheet and then put in a warm oven for a few minutes to dry it out a little. Worked really well.
Here’s the recipe I came up with, based on my friend’s recommendations:
http://sseichinger.blogspot.com/2007/04/fruity-fried-rice.html
April 16th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Thanks for helping to demystify fried rice!
April 16th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Just found your site via Slashfood. Love it!
Fried rice is probably the dish I cook the most, and my stand-by ingredients (due to the ease which with they can be found in any supermarket) are scallions, egg, and deli ham. I make my rice fresh, and I do not measure the water other than to have the water level about one fingernail depth above the rice (in a rice cooker). I add the egg at the end, just before seasoning, so that every grain of rice is coated with a little egg. I season with salt, MSG (the most direct way to add umami!), and white pepper. I will sometimes use ketchup as well, rather than salt and MSG.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Steve- I love ketchup in my fried rice too! It sounds so weird, but it works. There was a Vietnamese restaurant in L.A. that I used to go to and order only 2 things on their menu: teeny tiny 1/2″ snails in some creamy broth and fried rice with ketchup.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I finally made it to the international market and was pleased to find the Three Crabs fish sauce and several varieties of lap xuong (they all seemed to be labeled with the Vietnamese spelling). I always have some jasmine rice leftover (this time from making a Thai red curry) so I’ll be dining in style tonight.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Hey Grebby, very happy that you found the ingredients! Let me know how it turned out.
April 29th, 2007 at 8:21 am
I find that the secret to fried rice is sesame seeds, it adds a slightly more savoury edge to it, and when the rice is topped with soy sauce the seeds are amazing.
- I have yet to try the chinese sausage yet. What meat is it?
I use a concentrated fish sauce made by bart spices, I think an english brand, its very much tea coloured, and its very strong so a little goes a long way, I bought it 6 months ago and haven’t finished it!!!
April 29th, 2007 at 8:47 am
GuyJ- I love sesame seeds too, esp toasted black sesame seeds! Adds texture and great color.
Chinese sausage is mostly pork. There are some other varieties as well that include some duck liver.
Haven’t seen the Bart Spices fish sauce…will have to google that!
April 29th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
The product can be found here:
http://www.bartspices.com/product.aspx?product_id=125
They do a lot of thai spices and some indian aswell.
April 29th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
They have a lot of great products - love the freeze dried herbs (process keeps it very fresh and it is the next best thing to the freshly picked). Also like that they have a ton of organic products.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Me & my brother are fried rice crazy. Can you recommend a good, non pork, sausage substitute? Thanks!
May 15th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Hi Andy-
You can use any type of sausage, really. Today, I made chicken sausage fried rice. Since chicken has very low fat, no need to “render” the fat.
1. fry sausage until 80% done. remove.
2. fry all the other ingredients
3. add sausage back, fry until sausage is done
4. add rice and seasonings
Good luck, let me know how it turns out.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I am from India, I dont have most of the things required, and I am a veg, What do I do???
August 4th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
3 comments.
1. I love your pics.. what camera do you use? They are also very vibrant shots, so do you up the saturation in them also?
2. Ketchup in fried rice is divine. Adds a vinegry taste to it, and also, if the batch is not as good, like cheese, ketchup fixes every mess up in the kitchen.
3. re: Comment from india, its easy to make a fried rice with vege stuff. use whatever veges you want, add coriander/cilantro, add soy sauce instead of fish sauce. And leave out the sausage, add nutrella or other soy product for protein. All great recipes come from our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on. I refuse to believe that they always had all the ingredients, and so I am sure they improvised with their meals. Work out the essence of what you want to create and experiment towards it.. if it fails, just add ketchup… or cheese and then TRY AGAIN!… thats what cooking is all about. would you agree steamy kitchen?
August 20th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Ash - Instead of fish sauce, just use a little more soy. Instead of Chinese sausage, just leave it out and use some grated ginger to give the rice a nice fragrant flavor.
Rudi- Here are your answers
1. I have a Canon Rebel XT. I usually increase the brightness and contrast of the photos. Sometimes I increase the saturation. Food photography really does need a little boost.
2. YUMMMMM>…. i use ketchup too!
3. Thanks for the ideas!
February 18th, 2008 at 7:37 am
fish sauce and sesame oil makes a big difference, thanks! I added some soy to colour the rice a little. It’s a great improv dish… chicken, leftover ham ends all make it taste good. My favourite version is julienned chicken with salted fish from Chinese restaurants… haven’t figured this one out yet. Do you have a good recipe?
February 18th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Hey Sandra,
I haven’t made salty fish fried rice before - though I always order it out at restaurants. I haven’t been able to find salty fish at the markets where I live and I’m not quite brave enough to bring some with me in my suitcase coming home from Los Angeles.
jaden
March 12th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
i didn’t think it was so easy like that, thanks for your tips. i will try tonight for my family
April 11th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Thank you so much for putting this on the web. I am absolutely thankful and anxious to try this recipe out. I love integrating my own recipes with others. Again cheers to making fried rice everyone!
-Sandra