Not Exactly a Recipe: Chicken Fried Rice
This was supper two nights ago. It was a “please, not pasta again” night and a “we don’t have any potato in the house to go with that” night. So with Deb’s well-placed trust in the outcome, I engaged in making chicken fried rice, but not as I traditionally have made it. It was a “less soy sauce, please” and “hey, I could try adding peas” variant.
Sadly, no recipe you can follow more than by winging it. However, it was the Best Fried Rice Ever, and photogenic to boot, so I thought I’d tell you about it before I forget in the afterglow of last night’s superior steak and bean burritos. Making it made me want a wok. At the least, I could have used a larger frying pan. Especially if I keep it in mind as a pot luck or serve-to-company dish in the future.
Okay, so I used about a cup and a quarter dry of white rice. I cooked it “wetter” than normal, and with a bit more butter in the water than normal.
I thawed out two smallish to medium chicken breasts and cut them into quite small pieces. In the frying pan I put a chunk of butter, call it 3-4 tablespoons, and spiced that. What I mean is either before the heat is on, or as it is starting to heat on low, I put the spices onto the hunk of butter so they are on and near it, and mix into liquid butter.
At that point I used a few shakes of black pepper, a dash or so of garlic powder, a good pinch or so of celery salt, ample powdered ginger - probably as much as half a teaspoon, a pinch of onion powder, and a pinch of red pepper. Lightest on the last two.
I fried the chicken in the butter on low to medium, turning, stirring and separating as needed, getting it well cooked. I may have needed to add a touch more butter along the way. When that was done enought, I left it in the pan, but pulled to one side, leaving most of the pan free. More butter. The entire recipe takes most of a stick, though I am sure you could go lighter, and more of it gets added on top of the rice, so don’t use it all at this point. Also I traditionally add soy sauce both before the rice goes in, and into the rice. I can’t for the life of me remember whether I added the sauce before or after, but either way works and I’ll mention it below as if that was when I did.
Add the rice. Get ready to stir busily. I broke two eggs on top of the rice, then folded and stirred fairly thoroughly. I find it strange seeing fried rice recipes where you scramble eggs, chop them up and add them as an ingredient, because I learned it as the egg going in and coating the rice to help give it body and make it more fryable. Thus any egg pieces that look scrambled are incidental. After or as the eggs get mixed in, if not sooner, add a few small glugs, or perhaps more accurately, sprinkles, of soy sauce. New to me for fried rice, I used a similar amount of terriyaki sauce.
I added more butter on top, in a few small pats, to help the rice fry and to carry through the flavor of substantially more ginger, more than I fried the chicken with, and some more dashes and pinches of the other spices. The primary flavor is ginger, with enough everything else for balance. It had a solid flavor without being spicy.
About the same time I added more butter, I remembered to add frozen peas, which were the remaining 1/3 to 1/2 of a typical bag of them. I also started pulling the chicken into the rice as I stirred things up. Especially after it was all mixed, I gave it opportunities to cook long enough to fry some of the rice on the bottom layer golden, then mixed it in and let another layer get the color and texture. It adds color and varying texture to what would otherwise still be mostly off-white rice kernels. Part of the reason for the soy sauce is color. It was also hard to really fry it with the pan so full.
It was as delicious as it looks in the picture. More so, probably. Deb is sold on it as a fairly regular dish, now that I all but eliminated the soy sauce and made it tastier than ever. Sorry for the lack of real measurements. Perhaps next time I’ll try to get numbers the way I did with the spicy chicken. Thing is, tastes vary and it’s a great dish to vary to taste, as well as one that’s very forgiving and easy to adjust.
Maybe Nin would eat something like that. I usually can’t get her to eat rice.
Posted by Ith on 05/06 at 11:52 AMI just rediscovered my wok today, and your quasi-recipe has inspired me to make some fried rice tonight. Only problem is I suck at boiling rice in the first place
It’s always the easiest things that trip you up.
Ah well, practice makes perfect…
Posted by Citizen Grim on 05/07 at 03:14 PM
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