**The Art of Making Fujian Fried Rice**
Fujian fried rice is a staple dish in Chinese cuisine that requires some finesse to get right. In this article, we'll delve into the world of making delicious Fujian fried rice and explore the techniques and tips that will elevate your cooking skills.
**Thickening the Sauce with Starch Slurry**
To make the sauce for our Fujian fried rice, we need to thicken it with a slurry made from starch and water. This step is crucial in achieving the right consistency for the sauce. The recipe calls for 2.5 tablespoons of starch mixed with an equal amount of water, which needs to be added bit by bit until the desired spoon-coating consistency is reached. It's essential to use a root vegetable starch like potato or tapioca to ensure that the sauce holds better in the end.
**Choosing the Right Starch**
The type of starch used is crucial in making the perfect slurry. Potato or tapioca starch are excellent options for this recipe, as they provide a better texture and consistency to the sauce. Using these types of starch will help prevent the sauce from becoming too thin or sticky.
**Adding Flavor to the Slurry**
Once the slurry has reached the desired consistency, it's time to add flavor. We sprinkle in 1/8 tsp of white pepper and an optional half tablespoon of the frying oil used earlier. This step is essential in enhancing the overall flavor profile of the sauce.
**Smothering Fried Rice with the Sauce**
Now that we have our thickened sauce, it's time to smother our fried rice. The key to making great fried rice is to use a combination of techniques, including steaming and frying. In this recipe, we're using the steaming method, which provides the best results for same-day fried rice.
**The Steaming Method**
Rinsing 230 grams of Jasmine rice and cooking it like pasta in boiling water is an essential step in making great fried rice. After par-boiling the rice for three minutes, draining it, and keeping it in a fine mesh strainer, we rinse the pot with two inches of water and bring it to a boil. Spreading the rice evenly on the pot and poking a few holes with a chopstick allows the steam to come through.
**Steaming to Perfection**
Once the pot has reached a boil, spreading the rice evenly and wrapping the edges with a damp towel or foil (depending on your preference) helps create an environment that traps the steam. After about fifteen minutes, we take out the steamed rice and let it cool slightly.
**Frying the Rice**
To fry our steamed rice, we swirl in two tablespoons of oil and heat it up until it can bubble around a pair of chopsticks. Then, we pour in the egg and scramble it with the rice. Scooching the cooked bits to the sides creates room for the remaining egg mixture to cook evenly.
**Adding Flavor to the Fried Rice**
Once the egg is fully incorporated into the rice, we add 1/4 tsp each of salt, MSG, and sugar to enhance the flavor profile. This step is crucial in balancing out the flavors of the dish.
**Assembling the Dish**
With our fried rice ready, it's time to assemble the dish with our thickened sauce. We smother our cooked rice with the sauce and then top it with sliced gailan stems, which are blanched before adding them to the dish.
**The Importance of Blanching Gailan Stems**
Blanching gailan stems is a crucial step in making great Fujian fried rice. Before adding them to the dish, we need to blanch them in hot oil to remove bitterness and add texture.
**Passing Through Oil for Meat**
When cooking with meat, it's essential to pass through oil first before adding other ingredients. This helps create a flavorful sauce that complements the meat perfectly.
**The Video Recipe**
In the video version of this recipe, we cooked the sauce completely separately from the fried rice. However, when you're actually cooking, what you want to do is pass through oil for the meat first and then blanch the gailan stems before frying the rice.
**A Complete Meal in One Dish**
By incorporating gailan stems into our Fujian fried rice dish, we've created a complete meal that's both flavorful and nutritious. The addition of vegetables adds texture and variety to the dish, making it a satisfying meal for any time of day.
**Conclusion**
Fujian fried rice is an art that requires patience, skill, and attention to detail. By following this recipe and mastering the techniques outlined above, you'll be well on your way to creating delicious and authentic Chinese cuisine. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more Chinese cooking videos and recipes!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enOkay, so you like fried rice. And you probably also like things smothered in gravy. If that does describe you, this – Fujian fried rice - is the rice for you. What you’re looking at is an egg fried rice smothered with an umami – like, actually umami, I’m not just saying that – shrimp and chicken laden sauce that’s honestly one of my favorite fried rices in the world.Now, again, the name of this dish is Fujian fried rice. So for the unaware, this is the province of Fujian, it’s right across from Taiwan, and the food there is famous for its seafood and its sweet and sours. So you might expect Fujian fried rice to come from the Hokkien cultural capital of Quanzhou, or maybe the Provincial Capital of Fuzhou, or even the Special Economic Zone of Xiamen… but it’s actually… from Hong Kong and doesn’t really have much to do with Fujian at all. It’s a common theme - 20th century Cantonese chefs just… kind of liked naming stuff after relatively random places - Singapore rice noodles, not from Singapore. Yangzhou fried rice isn’t from Yangzhou. Swiss chicken wings aren’t Swiss, the list goes on. Now where you’ll usually find Fujian fried rice is in Cha Chaan Teng, Canto-western diners that we’ve covered a lot before on this channel. But in a subset of Cha Chaan Teng you’ll also find dishes inspired by Hong Kong’s sister ex-colony of Singapore – curry, kaya toast, so forth – so if I had to guess, I’d imagine that Singaporean Hokkein Mee – Fujian noodles – might have been the inspiration. It’s similarly saucy, they’ve got some similar ingredients… and you could totally imagine some Cha Chaan Teng somewhere topping instead of cooking noodles with gravy, and these restaurants are famously mix and match.And this gravy is versatile, it is easy, and you can totally use it top other stuff if you don’t feel like frying rice. What it is is a qian, a thick slurry-thickened sauce that we discussed before in our “what is Chinese brown sauce” video. But for this one, we won’t need a stock base because the base instead will be based off of dried ingredients. We’ll using two or about 5g of dried shiitake together with 20g or about 30 dried scallops. If you can’t find dried scallop you could also use dried shrimp but the flavor would be a little different. Soak those with one and a half cups of hot, boiled water from the kettle, and set that aside of at least one hour. Next, cut up one chicken thigh, or about 150g deboned, into half inch chunks, and then marinate with an eighth teaspoon each salt, white pepper, and sugar… and a half teaspoon each cornstarch, soy sauce, and Shaoxing wine. Mix well, coat with a teaspoon of oil, and set that aside.Then, we’ll want a similar 150g of shrimp meat, peeled from six large shrimps, and also cut those into half inch chunks. Rinse the shrimp under running water until the water runs clean, about 30 seconds or so… squeeze dry with a paper towel, and then marinate with an eighth teaspoon each salt and white pepper.And… last bit – gailan stems. Pick off the leaves and flowers from a bundle of gailan and save those for another use, more on that at the end of the video – and throw away that final 1 centimeter of hard dried stem at the bottom. We’ll want 100 grams worth of this stem. Slice at an angle into about half centimeter thick pieces, and also set those aside.Next up, let’s pre-cook all of these ingredients before slapping them into our sauce. So as always, first longyau – get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, and add in about a half a cup of oil. With the flame on medium-high now, bring the oil temperature up to about 150C and add in the chicken. Fry it until it’s changed color, or about one minute… then take it out to drain and then do the exact same move with the shrimp. Dip out your oil but no need to wash the wok quite yet – just toss in a cup and a half of water, bring it up to a rapid boil and toss in your gailan stems. Blanch until the color deepens, or until just a bit of the white core remaining’s at the center, about one minute, and remove.Then at this point, our dried mushroom and scallop should be good and reconstituted. So give the mushroom a squeeze, snip off the stem, and slice that into about half centimeter pieces. Similarly, fish out the scallop, and press down on it with a knife to break it down into a floss. Add the scallop back into the soaking liquid, and then with that now we can make our sauce.So, to a wok swirl in about a tablespoon of oil, and over a medium flame fry the mushroom for about a minute and a half til fragrant, and then swirl in a tablespoon of Shaoxing wine. After a quick mix, add in the scallop and soaking liquid, and then season with the Cantonese qian usual suspects, which are all up here on the screen. Once it’s at a boil, swap the flame down to medium low and add in the chicken and the shrimp. Let that cook together for about a minute, toss in the gailan stems and give it another quick mix. Then at this point, we’ll thicken this all with a slurry – 2.5 tablespoons starch, equal amount of water – bit by bit making sure that we don’t over thicken. That said, for this slurry do try to use a root vegetable starch like potato or tapioca if at all possible so that the sauce will hold better in the end. Once at spoon coating consistency, sprinkle in an 1/8 tsp white pepper, and an optional half tablespoon of the frying oil from before. And then with that, this can smother some fried rice.Now. The way we fried our rice today was via the steaming method, which is the best way to make same day fried rice. But every time we pull this move it’s a little… controversial.. doesn’t matter how many receipts we bring – evidence from professional kitchens, evidence from historical documents – it’s never enough. We’re little tired, so truly believe me when I say, fry rice however the hell you wanna fry rice, but if you’re curious to see our modern homecooking take of a traditional Chinese technique that’s known for making superior fried rice, this is how we do it:First, rinse 230 grams of Jasmine rice, then dump that into a pot of boiling water, cooking it like it’s pasta. Par boil the rice for three minutes, drain, and then keep that rice in a fine mesh strainer. Then, give your pot a quick rinse, add in about two inches of water, and get that up to a boil. Spread the rice evenly and poke a couple holes with a chopstick to allow the steam to come through.Then steam that, wrapping the edges with a damp towel. The towel will sort of seal things but you don't need to be too paranoid about a little crack here or there. Also, you can alternatively wrap this with foil instead if that makes more sense for you in your kitchen. Then after about fifteen minutes then just take that out, spread it onto plate and then this is ready to fry. No drying in front of a fan, no waiting 24 hours in the fridge… the par-boil and steam method does your job for you.So then to fry that, swirl in about two tablespoons of oil and heat that up until it can bubble around a pair of chopsticks and pour in the egg. Scooch the cooked bits to the sides, and once there’s no liquid egg running around, add in the steamed rice… folding from the bottom and layering it on top. Steamed rice will form nice separate grains practically immediately, so once the egg’s evenly mixed in, or about afte a minute or two, season with 1/4 tsp each of salt, MSG, and sugar.Then remove it to a plate, smother over your Fujian fried rice sauce… and then this is good to devour.So in the video, we cooked the sauce completely seperate from the fried rice, but when you’re actually cooking it, what you want to do is pass through oil for the meat first, and then you blanch the gailan stems, and THEN you fry the rice… and then you move on to making the sauce. This way, both the fried rice and the sauce can be hot when you serve it together. And as for the gailan leaves, what you can just do is stir fry it at the same meal, so that you will just have some rice, have some vegetable, and there you have a full, complete meal.So right! Check out the recipe in the description box, a huge thank you to everyone supporting us on Patreon… and of course, subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos!\n"
