Ren's fried rice

Get Off My Lawn - The Pub! God of Cookery
1

Here’s my family’s fried rice recipe. It’s not exact because my mom would often throw in whatever leftovers happened to be in the fridge at the time so feel free to substitute meats and other vegies at will.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain rice, steamed and then chilled overnight. Don’t use freshly cooked rice as it will be too sticky. Break up large clumps of rice before cooking.
2 eggs lightly beaten
1/2 cup frozen peas (thawed)
1/2 cup diced bell pepper (red or green)
1 cup mung bean sprouts with heads and tails removed (optional, but makes the dish better)
1/2 cup diced scallions (green onions)
1 cup poached chicken, shredded and marinated overnight in 1 T soy sauce, 1 t sugar, 1 t sesame oil OR 2-3 links of Chinese sausage steamed for 15 minutes, cooled and sliced OR any leftover meat or tofu
~2 T of Oyster flavored sauce (bottled) to taste (in the Asian section of your grocery store; I prefer the Lee Kum Kee brand with the label that has a boy and girl on a boat)
2-3 T Cooking oil

Cooking: Add a small amount of the cooking oil to coat your wok or large pan before each step

  1. Heat wok or pan over medium heat. Scramble eggs with a dash of salt. Remove to dish
  2. Heat wok over high heat. Add some oil and stir fry peas and bell pepper for about 2m then remove to dish
  3. Add 1T oil to wok and let heat until smoking slightly (to test, a drop of water should sizzle). Add rice and stir fry until warmed through, about 3 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent burning and break up any clumps of rice.
  4. Add bean sprouts and stir fry 2 more minutes
  5. Add eggs, peas, peppers and any meat. Stir fry 1-2m more until heated through. Stir in oyster sauce to taste. Rice should turn very light brown. Add more oyster sauce as needed.
  6. Turn off heat, remove to serving dish and serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a main dish (add a veg on the side for a meal) or maybe 6 as a side dish. When I was a kid, I would put ketchup on this. Now I just keep the bottle of oyster sauce on the table.

2

That might just be my cooking attempt for tomorrow. Already got some chicken marinating in some soy sauce and some spices. You have any recommendations for replacing the oyster sauce? Something about it just seems a little eeky, I guess, to cook with.

3

Well…you could replace oyster sauce with soy sauce, but the flavor would be different. Trust me, the oyster flavoring in the sauce is not overpowering or fishy at all. It’s the base of many sauces you have already had in Chinese restaurants. It’s also great dipping sauce for poached chicken, fried dumplings, etc. and good on top of eggs.

4

Oyster sauce is YUMMY. I use it for a bunch of things, like fried rice and random stir fries. Despite it’s name, it doesn’t taste like oyster. But it is a pretty darn important base for a large number of chinese dishes. If you don’t use it, the flavor of these dishes don’t taste quite right.