Golden Egg Fried Rice (10 minutes quick recipe)

When you make egg fried rice, do you fry egg first or fry rice first?

My golden egg fried rice recipe was inspired by a Japanese anime called Chūka Ichiban! (中華一番!, The best in Chinese food).

In one episode, the main character Mao made this golden egg fried rice simply with rice, eggs, oil, salt, and white pepper.

Mao used his special cooking skills to make this fried rice golden and shiny, and the dish was so delicious that made the food critic cry.😂

How to make egg fried rice golden?

Mao didn’t tell us how he made his egg fried rice golden. It could be a chef’s top secret~

However, I successfully made my egg fried rice golden with 1 simple trick: separate egg whites and egg yolks!

We mix the egg yolks with rice, to make golden egg fried rice!

The egg yolks are not only used as natural food coloring, but it also contain lots of proteins which drain water from the rice – remember, the rice must be dry for the perfect performance!

That’s also why we always use leftover rice for fried rice. 

Why use leftover rice for egg fried rice?

For me there are 2 reasons:

1. I hate to waste food! Yes, let’s use them all ~👍
2. Fresh cooked rice could be too soft, wet, sticky, and mushy to be stir fried. 

According to an article on American’s Test Kitchen , leftover rice “undergoes a process called retrogradation” after cooled in the fridge, “the starch molecules form crystalline structures that make the grains firm enough to” be stir fried. After stored in the fridge overnight, the left over rice grains could get a dry and firm texture which is perfect for fried rice. 

More straightforwardly, freshly cooked rice is more likely to stick to each other, so that not all of the rice grains will have an equal chance to be heated by oil. They might even stick to the pan and will either make it very difficult for you to cook, or ruin your favorite pan! 

As for leftover rice , you can easily separate the rice grains with your hands before stir frying. In this recipe, I even coated the rice grains with egg yolk, so that each rice grain would be surely separated and turn into golden color once the egg yolk is fully cooked. 

Tips for making good fried rice:

1. Heat up the wok/pan until smoking hot.

In the anime, the main character Chef Mao also emphasized this point. He said it’s ideal to use “flame cooking” (火焰料理) to make this dish.

    Although it’s hard for our family style stoves to reach restaurant’s cooking temperature, we could make sure to preheat the cooking oil until “smoky hot” before adding in ingredients to get “wok hei” (锅气，”wok’s breath”).

The basis of wok hei is the smoky flavor resulting from caramelization of sugars, maillard reactions, and smoking of oil.

    According to an article written by Michelin Guide Digital-Hong Kong Macau:  Wok hei is produced when rice grains are stir fried over flame, “the searing heat blasts away excess moisture, drying out the surface of the food for maximum caramelization”.

2. Seasonings of your choice

Besides eggs, leftover rice, oil, salt these four must-have ingredients, here are some common and popular ingredients/seasonings you could add to your egg fried rice:

Butter: Although authentic Chinese egg fried rice never contains butter, I often enjoy the taste of butter rice (See my Japanese Butter Rice Recipe). But keep in mind that butter has a low smoke point compared with other cooking oil – if you want to add some “wok hei” (we just explained this above) into your rice, you should still fry the rice with vegetable oil, and add extra butter to the rice as an extra seasonings. 

Garlic: if you are a garlic lover, you may want to add garlic to every single dish, so why not make some garlic fried rice? Here’s a great recipe for you from Tiffy!

Vegan: I made my golden egg fried rice vegetarian friendly, since didn’t add any meat to this dish. If you don’t feel comfortable eating eggs, feel free to substitute the eggs with JUST EGG – here is a vegan egg fried rice recipe from Vegans Baby.

Soy sauce and sake: When Mr He and I ate in a Japanese steak house (hibachi, where the chef cooks in front of you), we observed the chef add soy sauce and sake to his fried rice. If you are a fan of Japanese steak house, you should try adding these two seasonings to your fried rice! Here is a Hibachi-style fried rice recipe from Alissa.

Vegetables and meat: It’s always a smart choice to add some extra nutrients and textures to your egg fried rice. Some of my favorite vegetables and meat to go with the fried rice are kimchi, Chinese sausage, broccoli, mushroom, peeled shrimp, and cucumber! Make sure the meat is fully cooked before serving. And make sure to not over cook the vegetables so they are not too soft and mushy – especially diced cucumbers, make sure you toss them in after you turn off the heat!

EQUIPMENT you will need:

• Wok or Frying Pan

INGREDIENTS list:

• 1 cup cooked rice (1-day-old cold leftover rice)
• 3 eggs – medium size (or 2 large eggs)
• 1½ tbsp cooking oil (vegetable oil, olive oil, or corn oil)
• ½ cup mixed vegetables (I used frozen carrots, corns, and peas. No need to thaw.)
• ¼ tsp salt (or to your taste), ¼ tsp chicken powder (Contains MSG, optional)

• ¼ tsp Szechuan pepper powder (It’s “white pepper powder” in the anime. I tried both and personally prefer Szechuan pepper powder. You can also use black pepper instead.)

• 1 tbsp Green onions – chopped (optional)

Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS

1. Crack 3 eggs in a bowl. Carefully transfer 2 egg yolks to a separate bowl, mix with cooked rice until every grain of rice is well-coated with egg yolk.

2. Add 1 tbsp of cooking oil to a preheated wok/pan, heat up the oil over high-heat until it’s smoking hot.

3. Add 3 egg whites and 1 egg yolk to the wok, stir-fry quickly for 30 seconds until it’s “half cooked” (the chef in the anime said so. To me, “half cooked” means that the fried egg is still tender and the meddle part is still runny.) Transfer fried eggs to a bowl.

4. No need wash or wipe the wok, add ½ tbsp of cooking oil to the wok. Add the egg yolk rice mixture to the wok, stir fry over medium high heat for 2 minutes, or until there is no liquid egg yolk in the wok.

5. Toss in mixed vegetables, stir fry until the rice grains turn dry and start to “pop” in the wok.

6. Add fried eggs to the wok, stir to mix well.

7. Add salt, chicken powder, Szechuan pepper powder (or pepper) to the rice, stir to mix well. Taste to adjust the amount of salt.

8. Transfer the golden egg fried rice to a serving plate. Garnish with chopped green onions. Serve hot.

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