Egg Fried Rice: Cantonese Side Dish

Egg fried rice is usually made in a wok over high heat. Essentially, it’s rice with scrambled eggs, mixed well and fried until dry. Green onion tops are usually added at different stages of cooking. The dish is rarely salted; more often soy sauce is added, which is salty enough, if you like. For aroma you can use Chinese five-spice powder (wuxiangmian). There are also plenty of optional additions: peas, beans, ham, chicken and so on.

If you don’t have cooked rice in the fridge, boil a cup of white rice (180 g), not the stickiest kind, until almost done. Or take the amount you need of rice you’ve cooked ahead. The rice should be boiled almost to doneness; the Italians would say it should be al dente. You can go by the usual water-to-rice proportions or, which makes things much easier, boil it in a large amount of water and drain it in a colander.

Use at least three eggs per cup of rice. We usually use 3-5 eggs, though I’ve seen people use even more. By the way, the color of the finished egg fried rice depends on the color of the yolks. It doesn’t affect the taste, but the look is different. You can use plenty of green onion tops; just chop them as you would for a salad. Crack the eggs into a bowl and add half of the chopped green onion. Beat the eggs with a fork.

Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or deep skillet over high heat. Sesame or peanut oil works very well, as does a mix of different vegetable oils, including sunflower. When the oil is hot, pour in the eggs with the green onion so they spread out in the oil.

Right away add the cooked white rice on top of the eggs and start stirring vigorously with a spatula. The goal is for the eggs and rice to combine evenly, with no large pieces of omelet. As it cooks, the rice and egg absorb all the oil, the rice gradually gets drier and the egg pieces become barely noticeable. If you like, add a little salt and some fragrant five-spice powder to taste.

Quite often a little soy sauce is poured into the nearly finished dish. It makes the egg rice saltier and darker and boosts the flavor. Just before the end of frying, add the remaining green onion tops and stir well. You can add shrimp or pieces of fried chicken to the nearly done rice. It’s delicious, and then the dish is no longer a side dish but can be served on its own.

Divide the egg rice among plates; you can sprinkle it with herbs. I recommend frying lightly pounded chicken fillet for 8-10 minutes in a dry, very hot skillet to go with the rice. It’s an exceptionally pleasant combination. Slice the chicken into strips for serving. You can eat the rice with a fork or with chopsticks.

As additional ingredients you can use any vegetables: broccoli, carrots, green beans. Seafood is great too; it needs very little cooking so it doesn’t turn “rubbery”. So is any kind of meat or poultry. Feel free to add ginger, a little garlic and other sauces to the rice, such as oyster or fish sauce.