Yangzhou fried rice Puns

Review Chef Wang Gang Restaurant cook Yangzhou fried rice https://youtu.be/ZgdCMwDLhq0

Recipe

Obviously, there are a few ingredients here that can be quite expensive outside of China (looking at you dried scallops) but with a few modifications, this can be a cheap and easy weekday meal that always surprises me with its fantastic savoriness. While my adaptations for what's in my fridge may not be the most healthy, it can easily be adjusted to avoid salts and fats while still maintaining its great umami quality.

It works great as a side, but oftentimes it's so delicious that it overshadows whatever I pair it with. It's easy to pull off in almost any kitchen with or without a wok. I made it this weekend for some friends in a cabin near Glennallen, Alaska with just a cast iron and the results were great.

Tips for a quick and dirty U.S. fridge friendly version:

• Stick to dried shitake (but if you've got the budget for scallops they're awesome)
  • The shiitake is a must and can be found at much lower prices at your local Asian grocer
• Better than Bullion or whatever stock concentrate you have on hand works great
  • Most of the salt for the dish comes from the stock concentrate. So throw in a healthy teaspoon of better than bullion, adding more for taste works great
• Replace meat with thinly diced bacon
  • This skips a lot of steps and expense of the meal. Plus cooking the shiitake in bacon grease is fantastic
  • Throw in your mushrooms just when they're starting to crisp and be sure to pull back on the heat as to burn the oil or crisp the mushrooms
  • Ham also works great or you can just skip the meat entirely
• Shaoxing wine is preferable but can be skipped
• Add whatever leftover vegetables you have in the fridge
  • I like to do it with lots of broccoli, cut-up snap peas, and carrots. More vegetables the better!
  • Frozen peas, carrots, or corn also work great

Thanks to Steph and Chris for another great meal! Although I'm sure they'll hate my US bastardization of this ;)

So we wanted to teach you how to make a fried rice, and figured there’s no better place to start than the classic Yangzhou fried rice.

Now, it should be said upfront that proper Yangzhou fried rice is sort of a deluxe fried rice… it’s fried with lard and uses a bunch of dried umami-rich ingredients (the traditional recipe even calls for sea cucumber). We’re following a super old-school cookbook for this, but rarely will restaurants go this far – so feel free to play around with the recipe and make it your own.

Video is here if you’d like a visual to follow along.

Ingredients:

1. Jasmine Rice (丝苗米/泰国香米), 450g. Ok, let’s talk rice prep. Fried rice is like allergic to wet, sticky rice. For fried rice, you either wanna use day old rice or rice cooked at a dry ratio. Leaving the rice out overnight isn’t a must – after thoroughly rinsing the rice until the water ran clear, we drained it (draining in a strainer’s an important step!) and cooked our Jasmine Rice at a ratio of 1.2 parts rice to one part water (that’s not a typo, 375g of water) and spread it out over a plate until the rice cooked and the steam dissipated. Of course, what’s often easier is just using leftover white rice: if going that route, spread the rice over a plate and have it dry out overnight in the fridge.

2. Eggs, 2. We’re just using two eggs here, but I’ve seen some recipes call for more.

3. Dried Shittake Mushrooms (冬菇), 3-4. Like always, leave this to soak in hot, boiled water for at least two hours. You could also just start soaking these in room temperature water in the morning, and they’ll be done by the time you get home for dinner.

4. Dried Scallops (干瑶柱/干贝),5-6 Soak these together with the dried mushrooms. As always, don’t toss the soaking liquid, because…

5. Reserved Mushroom/Scallop soaking liquid, 3 tbsp. If you’ve read any of these before, you’ve probably heard me wax poetic about this stuff. The soaking liquid from dried mushrooms and shellfish is just as good if not better than stock, and obviously vastly easier to make. This is gunna form the basis of the sauce/seasoning liquid.

6. Jinhua Ham (金华火腿), 30g. Jinhua Ham is a dried cured Chinese ham that’s made by more or less the process as Spanish Jamón ibérico. If you’re outside China and can’t find this, that Iberian Ham’s an obvious sub… or you could sub in Lap Cheong, a country ham or a Parma ham, or do what many restaurants outside China do and just

So we wanted to teach you how to make a fried rice, and figured there’s no better place to start than the classic Yangzhou fried rice.

Now, it should be said upfront that proper Yangzhou fried rice is sort of a deluxe fried rice… it’s fried with lard and uses a bunch of dried umami-rich ingredients (the traditional recipe even calls for sea cucumber ffs). We’re following a super old-school cookbook for this, but rarely will restaurants go this far – so feel free to play around with the recipe and make it your own.

Video is here if you’d like a visual to follow along. Hopefully your VPN isn't acting too funky (Beijing's a great town, but in times like these man I'm happy in live in Shenzhen).

Ingredients:

1. Jasmine Rice (丝苗米/泰国香米), 450g. Ok, let’s talk rice prep. Fried rice is like allergic to wet, sticky rice. For fried rice, you either wanna use day old rice or rice cooked at a dry ratio. Leaving the rice out overnight isn’t a must – after thoroughly rinsing the rice until the water ran clear, we drained it (draining in a strainer’s an important step!) and cooked our Jasmine Rice at a ratio of 1.2 parts rice to one part water (that’s not a typo, 375g of water) and spread it out over a plate until the rice cooked and the steam dissipated. Of course, what’s often easier is just using leftover white rice: if going that route, spread the rice over a plate and have it dry out overnight in the fridge.

2. Eggs, 2. We’re just using two eggs here, but I’ve seen some recipes call for more.

3. Dried Shittake Mushrooms (冬菇), 3-4. Like always, leave this to soak in hot, boiled water for at least two hours. You could also just start soaking these in room temperature water in the morning, and they’ll be done by the time you get home for dinner.

4. Dried Scallops (干瑶柱/干贝),5-6 Soak these together with the dried mushrooms. As always, don’t toss the soaking liquid, because…

5. Reserved Mushroom/Scallop soaking liquid, 3 tbsp. If you’ve read any of these before, you’ve probably heard me wax poetic about this stuff. The soaking liquid from dried mushrooms and shellfish is just as good if not better than stock, and obviously vastly easier to make. This is gunna form the basis of the sauce/seasoning liquid.

6. Jinhua Ham (金华火腿), 30g. Jinhua Ham is a dried cured Chinese ham that’s made by more or less the process as Spanish Jamón ibérico. If you’re outside China and can’t find this, that Iberian Ham’s a