4 Levels of Fried Rice: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi I'm Emily and I'm a level one chef I'm Lorenzo and I'm a level two chef hi I'm King I'm a chef instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education and I've been a chef for 20 years this is my hangover fried rice basically I would love to level

up some day but this is not the recipe that's gonna get me there I was born in just a fun combo that you couldn't really kind of mess up and still be good whenever we have something in the fridge kind of put it together and make fried rice

today's a little bit elevated the first element of fried rice is I like using day old rice it's dried out a little bit so not sticky you don't want to have a clumpy fried rice sometimes you don't have old rice but you still have a hangover so what

to do in this case it's gonna be big race this is our Dale long grain rice that we'll be cooking today so what I have here is just your standard uncle man's type of rice we I'm going to mix it with water so I'm gonna bring this rice

to a boil go go go I'm gonna cover this up and bring it down to a simmer now and I'm just gonna leave it finish minutes and my rice is good look at that I'm two kinds of protein going in I have mm I love spam so this

is spam sort of like a pork cold-cut I'm gonna slice it up to put into my fried rice I've got some bigger chunks and I'm gonna make these with some smaller chunks a little spam surprise and everybody today I have 10 jumbo shrimp take the heads off the

tails off I just like to squeeze the end and pull it off in one shot these are really plump and yummy we're also devein them I'm gonna put that in there we're not gonna eat that and a shrimp you're clean put a little lemon juice in it I'm

just marinating it slightly two cloves of garlic add like salt and pepper to it and crush it now let's add this delicious sesame oil and I have dill Bill's fun mix this all together it smells really good and there you go marinated shrimp I have eggs this is

really not for beginners I am just going to cracked six eggs complicated procedure am I gonna attempt a ninja am I gonna tap the ninja yes pepper salt and I'm just gonna whisk this that is that and these are my proteins from your fried rice now this is

easy-peasy this is Chinese sausage which is so delicious my gosh we're gonna cut this in small rings it's cooked I can take a bite out of this if I wanted to topping next up we're gonna cut our chicken slice it around the same size as our shrimp and

our sausage okay vegetable this is scallion be quick and easy I'll save you guys for later the scallion I'm really only going to use as a topping at the end but I'm chopping it up now cuz now's as good a time as any seize the day carpe diem

for these sauteing all my vegetables I like using these bottom portions or my knife skills incredible yes just a little fancy it's nice to have it a little fancy sometimes for a garnish we're just gonna use the green tops of this guy it's a slice on the bias

and nice and thin and this will just be that pretty little accent on the top of the darn dish and the next thing I will do is I'm just gonna chop off a little limb here peel this carefully great my ginger I have some frozen peas we've got

delicious crunchy water chestnuts let's do garlic I'll just take my chef's knife and just smash slice it up chop it up a little bit I have some minced garlic which I had already pre minced I like the mashed garlic a little better because if you slice this too

small the little pieces of garlic will burn garlic I have two carrots do I have to peel this carrot I never do I really never do I just wash it it's fine easy crap carrots are difficult there's they're tiny and Rolly something that makes life a lot easier

is to cut things in half so you have a flat surface so that they don't roll around oh did she just give good advice to I'm gonna watch this back Emily you got to work on your knife skills a little thinner because I want to cook evenly with

everything else and I think we're just about ready to go here and then I have green beans but maybe three times and abayas and I have oh wow I love mushrooms these are pretty big so all I'm gonna do is cut this in half now all right napa

cabbage I'm just gonna slice it up and I mean for me that's the staple of fried rice we are gonna actually just use half of it my name's kind of give me gas so I understood a little you know follow the lines of the onion I've just sliced

right along with the onion yeah really putting me to work today easy so I've got my onion all chopped the edamame has already been shelled so those are ready to go and we have our vegetables let's go folks let's do it the next thing I'm gonna do is

I'm gonna cook all of my stuff together make some fried rice I'm gonna cook our rice in a wok so we're gonna use canola oil and I put it in my mother and then I'm going to put my garlic I like to start off with the egg don't

worry if it gets brown a little bit it's delicious there's a fine line between toasty and burn we don't want burn we want toast they're starting to get a little brown translucent and yummy looking okay you look been fabulous I'm gonna toss in with my garlic and most

fam I'm gonna start trying to brown that spam a little bit more vegetable oil so we're gonna get our Chinese sauces you're gonna go more flavors into that you have to poke it a little bit whenever you make sausages you want that fat to flavor the onions to

play with the garlic which in turn will flavor everything else we put in here and now you can see the juices bubbling inside chicken takes a while to cook so let's put some chicken in there my sausage that's already been cooled just to be fancy we're just gonna

cut it on an angle okay no Chinese sausage is prepped this is starting to look really delicious I'm get lot of ginger in terms of the smell now we're gonna say hello to the shrimp it's been marinating a little bit in because I have lemon juice so you

can make it rubbery if you overcook it so stay here don't leave your hand watch these guys my biggest problem when it comes to cooking is that I'm incredibly impatient I can see the shrimp changing now from that opaque color that's starting to turn pink which means they're

getting cooked that smells really good you guys we haven't reached that point yet where you can smell through the videos but you soon will I'm gonna take it out if you think I didn't cook it enough it's still cooking in this lovely jubbly Bowl so this was a

big half onion I'm just gonna put these guys in go hello red pepper flakes what's the green onions in my garlic sesame oil shiitake mushrooms water chestnuts little salt little pepper napa cabbage rice wine vinegars everything is pretty much cooked down we're looking really good right now let's

go in with our rice I'm gonna add some garlic powder and also a little bit of salt maybe not the ideal rice for this situation but it is better than nothing let's let this get hot again and I'm just tossing my frozen peas in here and you are

going to go right in this I'm just mixing it together we're gonna put a little oil in here eggs huh it'll also be my topping for later mix our egg getting some overhead of mommy beans the sauces that I have here are sesame oil not too much just

a little bit a little bit of us a good eyeball you guys moisture sauce love this stuff to add my eggs in I'm gonna try and get the eggs kind of all over everything as much as I can because the egg makes everything delicious the egg does a

lot of the hard work of this right now hello lovely juices wha-wha-wha wha-wha-wha Wow yowza folks now in you go warm yup through don't either cook yeah and one of my secret weapons crab paste a little bit goes a long way I think this is just about done

that's our fried rice I'm just gonna plate it and add some toppings now so I have my delicious spam and egg fried rice get a little bit of everything green beans those jewels of shrimp and sausage and chicken we're gonna hit it now with our Japanese Mayo use

a little sriracha oh yeah now I take a little bit more egg yum-yum my Chinese sausage delicioso furikake seaweed sesame seeds and this one has bonito flakes which is a smoked fish shave really thin folks you know me I'm gonna put a little ketchup on the side but

you don't have to do that this is my fried rice for when you're feeling broke hungover or just when you want it and this is my fried rice and this is my fried rice I hope it tastes as good as it looks cuz I think it looks really

good it just sings typically to be humble it'd be a dish I'm giving myself a 10 why not you know that mouthfeel from the shrimp from the crab pace you take you taste every little component in there which is great I'm gonna have another bite fried rice is

a dish that truly only is limited by one's imagination and what's left in your refrigerator let's take a look at how each of our chefs approached this widely varied dish Emily cooled her rice briefly which helps to keep rice grains separated as they condense a bit upon cooling

becoming hard and thereby maintaining individual grains that can be coated with flavorful fats and seasonings when frying lorenzo and king pulled their rice overnight which has the advantage of having some of the water evaporate very slowly under refrigeration so their rice was even harder and will stay separated

even better Emily's protein was spam and eggs spam is a mixture of ham and pork if that sounds redundant let me explain pork is what we call meat from any part of the pig ham however is pork that comes from a specific part of the pig its hind

leg there might be other meats in there too I don't know that's what spams all about you're not supposed to know pork and ham are ground together mixed with sugar or salt water usually potato starch and sodium nitrate which gives Span its distinct pink color and acts as

an excellent antimicrobial and cured meats it also slows rancidity so you won't have any developed off flavors or odors Lorenz I used shrimp and Chinese sausage as his proteins shrimp adds a wonderful seafood flavor while Chinese sausage is a broad term for various sausages that tend to be

on the dry side have slight sweet and salty flavors and a very fine grind they're also high in fat so they carry flavors very well Kim used slice white chicken meat which is lower in fat lowering connective tissue and myoglobin which is why it's so light in color

he also uses Chinese sausage and shrimp just like our level 2 Chef Lorenzo all three chefs included garlic and onion both of which have flavor compounds that become more mild when cooked in oil when you saute garlic and onions and oil you extract the lipid-soluble flavor compounds and

infuse the rest of the dish with these aromatics as the oil is dispersed throughout all three also used soy sauce which is a fermented product of soy beans it's dark in color and very salty each incorporated sesame oil as well which is also dark and infused with a

toasty nutty sesame flavor it can be a bit overpowering so you want to use it sparingly because it's powerful you guys you don't want it to just spill prepare everything Emily was the only chef to add ginger which is distinctive in flavor and adds a slight bite due

to the presence of ginger all which is a chemical relative to capsaicin and chili peppers and pepper een in black pepper she also added carrots for color and slight crunch carrots retain their bright orange color when cooked in oil because oil protects beta-carotene from oxidation and bleaching she

added green peas which were frozen frozen vegetables are great to use in a dish like fried rice because they retain their shape and nutritional quality well Lorenzo added carrots and napa cabbage napa cabbage is rich in vitamin c and has a fair amount of calcium and tastes mildly

aromatic unless overcooked when it can have more of a pungent sulfur e' flavor because it contains hydrogen sulfide he quickly stir-fried his rice with no prolonged cooking so it wasn't a problem here he added fresh shiitake mushrooms which will add moisture to his rice and water chestnuts water

chestnuts contain phenolic compounds that form cross links in their cells and it strengthens the cell walls and keeps water chestnuts persistently crunchy even after prolonged cooking king added shelled edamame which is fresh soybeans for a bit of extra protein crunch and green color he also seasoned with oyster

sauce made from fermented oysters and fish sauce traditionally aged in barrels for two months all three of our chefs added eggs which are a traditional part of fried rice Emily and Kings scrambled their eggs with the rice while Lorenzo cooked his separately and added them at the end

causing Lorenzo's eggs to look like an addition instead of an incorporation whoops Emily and Lorenzo used nonstick frying pans nonstick coating on pans of this type are made from Teflon which is like a plastic because it's a polymer of long carbon chains stabilized with fluorine atoms this works

well and you won't have any starchy rice that clings to the bottom of the pan King used a wok which is a more traditional method of cooking fried rice dishes walks conduct heat extremely well both in the center which is the portion of the pan receiving direct heat

and also around the slanted sides of the dish keeping all ingredients warm all three cooked at high heat for a short amount of time Emily garnished with crunchy green scallions and pepper sauce along with her ever-present ketchup so we aren't disappointed there it's spicy tangy and tasty Lorenzo

garnished with scrambled eggs and scallions King also used a pepper sauce and crunchy raw green scallions but added a visual as well as tasty addition by utilizing Japanese mayonnaise it's made with only the egg yolk as opposed to American mayonnaise which typically uses the whole egg it certainly

added visual appeal to King's fried rice there truly isn't a right or wrong way to make fried rice it's often just a matter of what is available at the moment the hunger strikes you next time you're looking to clean out your leftovers we hope you'll take inspiration from

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