No matter how hard I try, I feel like I can never get some dishes as perfect as restaurants do.
But it turns out there are some tricks and secrets to get everything from American diner-style pancakes and poached eggs just as good as the pros at home ― and the same applies to egg fried rice.
In a recent post shared to r/Cooking, site user u/MineKirin asked: “how do Chinese restaurants make their egg fried rice so damn moist? I feel like mine is so dry every time I make it.”
Here are some of the most-upvoted responses:
1) “Add a cornstarch or potato starch slurry to your eggs. It keeps them emulsified so they retain water and oil instead of drying out.”
2) “High heat matters. Less time to get the sear [on the rice] but not dry [it] out.”
3) “Oil. Lots and lots of oil.”
“Add oil like you own an oil well.”
u/xebsisor
“Oil is the secret… like it’s like trying to make mayo with scrambled eggs.” u/honk_slayer
4) “At the restaurant I worked at, it was 120ml of oil and 113g of butter for 2.27kg of white rice.”
5) “Some chefs could incorporate stock when tossing the rice in the wok, which gives it extra flavour and moisture (from the dried up rice absorbing it).”
Any other tips?
Another commenter pointed to a video from Michelin-trained chef, Eric Huang.
He shared that he used day-old jasmine rice, which is “drier and more fluffy” than other kinds.
Eric stressed the importance of “fluffing” the rice ― removing clumps with your hands or a fork ― the day before frying it and just before cooking.
The chef scrambles his eggs, dices some onion, slices some spring onion and gets out a bag of chopped carrots and peas to add into the mix while it’s frying.
He also advises spooning soy sauce around the edge of the pan as you cook the rice, so the liquid caramelises slightly.
“You can’t have great fried rice without some MSG,” he added.