Cantonese fried rice

Thao Uyen

A Vietnamese take on the traditional Cantonese rice, this is one of the most popular Chinese dishes in Vietnam. This fragrant and delicious fried rice will slip right into your happy stomach. 

If cooked rice has become monotonous for you and you want to make a party out of it, this one is for you.

Cantonese rice is a Chinese dish but it has been a part of Vietnamese cuisine for decades. The recipe I present to you today is a Vietnamese recipe, a simple version of the traditional Cantonese rice since the original recipe can include different nuts and a variety of oils and spices. You won’t find any nut in this Vietnamese recipe though and so it won’t have that crunchy texture. However, this one showcases a special Vietnamese technique and that is fried rice.

I call it special because now if I go to an Asian restaurant here in France and order Cantonese rice, I’ll get a dish of cooked rice mixed with oil, ham, fried egg, carrot and peas. Of course all the essential ingredients will be there but the mixed rice/oil is not the same as fried rice. Fried rice is made from cooked rice but unlike normal cooked rice, fried rice doesn’t stick, it shrinks a bit in size and becomes translucent with a chewy texture. It doesn’t absorb the flavors as readily as normal cooked rice but allows the flavors and spices to coat around each grain of rice. As a result, saucy fried rice ;) is tastier than cooked rice mixed with sauces.
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Fried rice has a different texture than normal cooked rice

To make fried rice, rice is cooked and cooled down completely before being fried on high heat with a small amount of oil until each grain of rice turns translucent and smoky. Because of the small amount of oil, the dish is not greasy. In fact, it is more like your stir-fried dishes. Aside from fried rice, any kind of ingredient can be added, like meat, seafood, egg, vegetables, sauces and spices. Usually it’s a mix of 2 to 3 of those ingredients. In my opinion, when it comes to Vietnamese fried rice, less is more. You don’t need fancy ingredients to make the dish shine because fried rice is already the star.  

Now that we know that we can elevate cooked rice, let’s try to recreate this dish that you can find in 8 out of 10 restaurants in Vietnam: Cantonese fried rice.  
        
Ingredients (for 2 servings):
2 Chinese sausages, cut into small cubes
150 gr or a medium carrot, cut into small cubes
30gr or ½ an average onion, cut into small cubes
100gr peas (frozen or fresh)
4 fresh shrimps, cleaned and cut into cubes
200 gr cooked rice, cooled in room temperature
1 egg, beaten
1 shallot, minced
1 tbspoon of oyster sauce
1 tbspoon of black soy sauce
1 tbspoon of vegetable oil
Salt
Grounded white pepper (optional)

For the serving sauce (optional):
2 tbspoons of soy sauce
½ green or red chili 
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Lots of cubes here but the cutting part is fun. I use yellow, purple and regular carrots for this dish.

How to cook:
First blanch the peas: put the peas in hot boiling water for 1 minute then transfer into a bowl filled with cold water for another 1 minute. We will stir-fry the peas with carrot later.

Put a frying pan on medium-high heat. Put the sausage cubes into the pan and stir for 2 minutes so that the fat in the sausages comes out. If the sausages give a lot of smoke, you can add a dash of water. Next put in the shrimps and stir for 2 more minutes then remove the pan from the heat, keep the stir-fried shrimps and sausages and throw away the oil. (Chinese sausages are salty so you don’t need to add salt for this step)

Next use the same pan to stir-fry carrot cubes and peas. There should be a thin film of oil left on the pan, this is enough for this step. On high heat, stir-fry the carrot and peas with 2 pinches of salt for 2 minutes then put the carrot and peas aside but keep the pan on the stove.

Now add a dash of oil into the pan along with onion cubes, a pinch of salt and minced shallot. Keep stir-frying so that the onion turns translucent then smoky (about 3 minutes on high heat).

Gather the smoky onion and shallot to one side of the pan. Next pour the beaten egg into the other side of the pan and swirl. Soon the egg will start to be cooked and double up in size, this is when you can add rice over the cooked egg along with oyster sauce and black soy sauce. Use your wooden spoon to fold the rice from the edges of the pan to the center and tap to flatten and spread it around the edges again. Keep repeating this step to mix the rice, egg and sauces together. When you do this, the cooked egg will be shredded into small pieces and mixed evenly with rice. This step takes about 4 minutes.
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You can add more cooking oil if the rice absorbs oil too fast before it is fried properly. For 200 gr of cooked rice, I use 1 tbspoon of cooking oil. When the rice and egg are mixed, stir in the onion and shallot from the side of the pan and mix for 2 minutes. When making fried rice, you need to constantly stir, fold and tap the rice and ingredients to make sure each grain of rice is coated evenly.

Add the stir-fried carrot, peas, sausages and shrimps and continue to mix for 2 more minutes on high heat. You can now add grounded white pepper if you want, then take the pan off the heat.

Serve fried rice hot. You can serve it with spicy soy sauce by adding slices of chili pepper, and also thinly sliced cucumber which will add crunchy texture, but all of these are optional. Another serving option is sriracha, the spicy sweetness makes it one of my favorite dipping sauces.
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Since there is water in vegetables, this fried rice can only be store in the fridge up to 2 days.

Do you like Cantonese rice or Cantonese fried rice? Do let me know if you give this recipe a try ;). Enjoy the week-end!
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