Try this chicken fried rice recipe for dinner tonight. It is an easy Candian recipe with minimal and common kitchen ingredients. It would be a wonderful treat for your family as it makes a great family meal. It is also a comfort meal because of its less preparation time.
The chicken fried rice recipe is a mouth-watering dish to be savored at least once in a lifetime. This delicacy finds its roots in the Indian subcontinent. This is an easy-to-cook dish, particularly when one has precooked rice. The chicken fried rice recipe, in simple words, is fried rice with chicken breasts in it. There is a plenitude of spices, vegetables, and sauces, giving the dish an exotic taste.
Fried rice is the hallmark of a Chinese restaurant. It is said that fried rice originated in China. The Chinese people consider wasting food as a taboo. Fried rice originated here when people decided to reuse cooked rice. Gradually, the dish traveled via the Silk Road to other parts of the world. Wherever the dish reached, people started making their own changes. They added and removed ingredients as per their taste, and the Chicken Fried Rice recipe was born of this process.
Chicken fried rice is a flavorful dish with tender and succulent pieces of chicken. It can be made in 15-20 minutes, given you have precooked rice already. You can use a carbon steel wok or a cast-iron skillet, or a pan to make the dish.
Ingredients Required
Rice and chicken are the two most important ingredients of the chicken fried rice recipe. You can choose to use any rice based on your taste. You can choose between long grain and medium grain rice. There are white rice and brown rice, among other popular varieties of rice available in the market.
Many prefer Basmati rice. Basmati Rice is a variety of rice from the Indian subcontinent. It is particularly popular for its long and thin grain and has a captivating smell.
Apart from rice and chicken, you would also need olive oil, eggs, garlic, green onions, and vegetables of your choice. You have the discretion to replace eggs with corn starch. Green onions give more nutrition and flavor than a normal onion. You can use vegetables like cabbage, bell peppers, and carrots.
Ingredients like salt and pepper powder are a must. You would also require soy sauce, oyster sauce, and white vinegar. Chicken Fried Rice can be made in just three major steps and is a great recipe.
1. Preparation of Rice
Instead of preparing rice, you can also use leftover rice, if you have. In order to cook the rice for the dish, you need to have your rice non-sticky and non-mushy. Before cooking the rice, you need to be mindful to wash the rice. This is crucial in the removal of impurities. You have the option to cook rice in the way you like. You can cook it in a pressure cooker or a large pot. My first preference in this regard is cooking rice in a pot because of its simple nature.
In the chicken fried rice recipe, rice preparation is the first step towards making the dish.
STEP 1 – You need to take 300gm of rice or as per your need and wash it well.
STEP 2 – You have to drain the excess water from the rice.
STEP 3 – Now, take the washed rice into a large pot and add water to it. You have to make sure that the water level is just about 2cm to the level of the rice. It should neither be more nor less. This is essential to make your rice non-sticky.
STEP 4 – You have to cover the pot with an air-tight lid.
STEP 5 – For the fried rice recipe, add the rice to the pot. Keep it on a medium flame for about approximately 20 minutes.
STEP 6 – After 20 minutes, close the flame and drain the water. You can use a colander to drain the water from the rice.
STEP 7 – After draining excess water, immediately cover it with a lid. You have to leave it in that state for at least 5 minutes. This is instrumental in making the rice firm and fluffy.
STEP 8 – After 5 minutes, remove the lid and muddle up the rice well with a spatula or a fork. Now, you need to let the rice cool down.
2. Preparation of Chicken
The next major step in the chicken fried rice recipe is to prepare chicken.
STEP 1 – You have to take 250gms of chicken and slice them into small pieces. Small pieces of chicken get cooked up easily. They also tend to be properly scattered in the final dish, unlike the bigger chunks, which remain concentrated. You can cut in widths of 1″ and a flat shape.
STEP 2 – Now, you need to cut the vegetables. You have to first cut cabbages into small slices and finely chop carrots and green chilies. If you are using bell peppers and green onions, they too have to be finely chopped. Also, finely slice the garlic into small pieces.
STEP 3 – For the next step in the chicken fried rice recipe, take the sliced chicken pieces in a bowl, add egg white, salt, and pepper.
STEP 4 – Mix the contents of the bowl well. You can skip the egg and instead add corn starch or cornflour to it. Egg white or corn starch is being added for a reason. When the chicken is fried in the pan, it often becomes chewy. Egg white or corn starch helps soften the chicken and enables it to remain soft even after frying.
STEP 5 – Now, add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and let the pan be heated.
STEP 6 – Keep the flame at medium and when the pan is hot, you need to add chicken.
STEP 7 – While regularly stirring the mixture, fry it for five minutes. If you stop stirring, the egg might stick to the pan.
STEP 8 – Remove the chicken from the pan after five minutes.
STEP 9 – Now, you should add the smashed egg yolk to the pan and stir it.
STEP10 – You have to muddle up the egg fry into small and soft pieces. You should be careful enough not to overcook it. Once it is done, add the chicken and stir them to combine.
STEP 11 – Now, transfer the chicken from the pan to the plate.
3. Preparation of Chicken Fried Rice
The final step is the most prominent step for the dish.
STEP 1 – You need to take a pan and add a spoon of olive oil. You should let the pan heat at a high flame for a minute.
STEP 2 – Now, you should add the finely chopped garlic. Fry the cloves of garlic for a minute or two.
STEP 3 – You have to add chopped carrots and bell peppers at this juncture. Fry the vegetables well. The objective of their frying is to eliminate the stiffness of those vegetables. It intends to make them so soft that they do not disturb the taste of chicken fried rice while chewing.
STEP 4 – Once the carrots and bell peppers become soft, you need to add the green onions and the finely chopped cabbage to the pan. You may have noted that carrots and pepper are added before onions and cabbage. It is because carrots and bell peppers are stiffer and require more time in the frying process. Cabbage and onion comparatively require less time for frying as they are already soft.
You may also add green chilies but as per your capabilities to consume the chilies.
For the next step in the chicken fried rice recipe, you have to fry the rice.
STEP 5 – Add the rice to the pan. The rice you are adding should be completely chilled.
STEP 6 – Stir fry the mixture well. You can also try to have leftover rice if you have from past lunch. You should toss-up the contents of the pan as and when required.
STEP 7 – Now, you should add salt and pepper to the rice.
STEP 8 – Mix the contents well with a spatula and fry for a minute.
STEP 9 – This step is succeeded by adding sauces to the fried rice. By adding soya sauce and oyster sauce to the fried rice. You can add the sauces of your taste and preference.
Sauces help add desirable flavors to the dish. You can also add white vinegar as it gives a great taste to the dish. If you prefer egg as a flavoring agent, it would also work great with fried rice.
STEP 10 – You are needed to add the cooked chicken and egg mixture to the fried rice in the pan.
STEP 11 – Stir to combine the resulting mixture on the pan for the chicken fried rice recipe. You should fry it well.
STEP 12 – Taste it. Once you taste it, you might feel the need to add some extra salt or sauce.
STEP 13 – Now, you have to fry the chicken fried rice for five minutes on medium heat. While frying, try to toss it regularly.
STEP 14 – Add some spring onion greens. Turn the flame off, let it cool for a minute and serve hot.
This was our Canadian chicken fried rice recipe. I firmly believe that if a recipe is in a book, it need not be authentic. Authenticity to a recipe comes from the reviews of readers. So, do share your views and experience on the same in the comment box below.
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