Garlic Fried Rice 蒜头炒饭

Garlic Fried Rice 蒜头炒饭

A big bowl of garlic fried rice enough for three people

A bowl of garlic fried rice

Rice, the staple food of most Asians, is very versatile. It can be eaten plain or made into  porridge. With a little imagination rice can be combined with an assortment of meat and vegetables and turned into spicy and fragrant rice dishes like nasi briani, nasi borjari, just to name a few. Plain cooked rice can be fried with  meat, vegetables and eggs and turned into delicious fried rice.

Today, I am sharing my version of garlic fried rice with you. I first tasted garlic fried rice in a Japanese buffet at a five-star hotel in town. Mesmerised by the fragrance of the generous helping of fried garlic added  into the fried rice at the Japanese buffet, I went home and recreated it. Of course, I do not have the Japanese chef's recipe, but the result was not too bad. I have been frying leftover rice using this concocted recipe ever since.

Ingredients :

Plain leftover rice

Left : Thinly sliced Chinese sausage,  Right : Soaked and shredded dried scallops

Chinese celery or kan choy in Cantonese

Shrimps which have been shelled and with veins removed

Ingredients 

400g cooked rice, if the rice is in lumps, break it up

20g dried scallops, soaked in water for 1 hour and shredded

150 shrimps, shelled and with veins removed

1 Chinese sausage, cut into thin slices

1 stalk of Chinese celery or kan choy in Cantonese, cut into 1 inch sections 

an egg (beaten)

40g minced garlic

Sauce ingredients

1 tsp of oyster sauce
2 tsp of abalone sauce
1 tsp of sugar
1/2 tsp of salt

Dissolve the sauce ingredients in 3 tbsp of water

Cooking Instructions

 

1.  In a wok, heat 2 tbsp of oil,  fry the shredded scallops over medium fire until fragrant. Dish up and set aside.

2.  Clean the wok, heat 1 tbsp of oil and fry the sliced Chinese sausage over medium fire till fragrant. Dish up and set aside.

3.  Clean the wok, heat 1 tbsp of oil  and fry the shrimps over medium fire until cooked. Dish up and set aside.

4.  In a clean wok, heat 4 tbsp of oil and saute the minced garlic over low fire until  fragrant. The  moment you smell fragrance, fry for another minute then dish up and set aside. ( Note : Test the sauteed garlic to see if it tastes bitter, if yes then you CANNOT use it because it is burnt)

5.  In a clean wok, heat 1 tbsp of oil, lower the flame to medium and pour in the rice and add the dissolved sauce ingredients and fry till almost dry, then add in the egg batter and fry further till dry.(Note: After the egg batter has been added to the rice in the wok, a thin film of egg will form on the surface of the wok. Take care not to scrape this film of egg while frying the rice)

6. Then add in the Chinese celery, scallops, sausage slices, shrimps and garlic and mix thoroughly.