China’s Most Famous Fried Rice Recipe – Yangzhou Chaofan (扬州炒饭)
Today, we are making Yang Zhou Fried Rice (扬州炒饭). A lot of people think it just is egg-fried rice, which is correct because there is egg in it but it is not as simple as you think. Today, I will show you how to make it authentic by following the industry-standard recipe. You didn’t hear me wrong, Yang Zhou Fried rice has a very strict standard which is published by Yangzhou Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau. If the local restaurants don’t follow the rules, they cannot name their fried rice after Yangzhou. So, stick with me and you will be surprised how much work and effort goes into this dish.
- Prep time
- 14 min
- Cook time
- 31 min
- Yield
- 4 servings
- Difficulty
- HARD
Ingredients
- 3 cup 600 grams of leftover rice
- 2 eggs
- 3 tbsp cooking oil
- 40 g bamboo shoot diced
- 40 g carrot diced
- 40 g pea
- 3 rehydrated shitake mushrooms diced
- 3-5 pc rehydrated dried scallop shredded
- 40 g Jin Hua ham steamed and diced
- 40 g chicken breast steamed and diced
- 1.5 tbsp chinese cooking wine
- 40 g shrimp diced
- 40 g rehydrated sea cucumber diced (Can be replaced by fresh sea scallop)
- 20 g scallions diced
- 1+1/4 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp cooking oil
Instructions
- 1
Soaked 3 dried shitake mushrooms and 3-5 dried scallops 2 hours ahead. Dice the mushroom finely. Put the scallop in a small blender to blend for 10 seconds or until it becomes nice and fluffy.
- 2
Put 40 grams of jin hua ham and 40 grams of chicken breast into a bowl along with a drizzle of Chinese cooking wine. Steam for 20 minutes. Save the steaming liquid and dice the ham and chicken finely.
- 3
Dice the rehydrated sea cucumber (can be replaced with fresh sea scallop) and shrimp. set it aside
- 4
Pre-blanched the bamboo shoot, carrot, peas in boiling water for about 40 seconds. Set it aside.
- 5
Crack 2 eggs and whisk them until you don’t see any obvious egg white.
- 6
Heat your wok until smoking hot. Add a few tbsp of oil. Toss in the egg. Stir with a pair of chopsticks as fast as you can. In about 3 minutes, all the eggs will be crumbled into small little bits. Squeeze the egg with your spatula so you can get rid of the oil. Set it aside.
- 7
You should have some oil left in the wok. If not, you can add a little more. Turn the heat back on high. Toss in the jin hua ham, shredded scallop, diced shitake mushroom, sea cucumber (or fresh scallop), shrimp, and chicken thigh. Sauté them for a couple of minutes.
- 8
Add the cooked day-old rice; keep stirring on high heat for a few minutes or until you can see some grains dancing and jumping at the bottom of the wok.
- 9
Add the blanched vegetables and the crumbled egg. Drizzle in the steaming liquid. Keep stirring until everything is well mixed.
- 10
Add some salt to taste. Give it a final toss. Before serving, sprinkle some diced scallion and your fried rice is done.