This past week was actually relaxing for me. I did not have a Materials lab report due. This meant a lot for an engineering guy! Usually I always spend 10+ hours on this kind of report every week. Also, there was no exam around the corner during this week. I joked with my friend, “Without labs or lab reports, I feel that I am just like an art major (no offense).” My friend is a chem major, and she spent all the time doing the lab reports, too.
Since I was pretty free this week, I was addicted to a soap show that I watched 10 years ago. It was so classic. I finished all the 30 episodes in one week… Thus, I did not sleep that much though I was free most of the time. Besides that, I tried to make some good food. Rice is not a primary food in America, bread instead. In my country (or most Asian countries as far as I know), rice, noodles and soup are major types of food every day. I really missed the Chinese food I usually had back to high school time. Thus, I spent the whole week learning how to make the best egg fried rice in my apartment.
I have to say life in an apartment is so great. I can get access to the kitchen every day. I can make whatever food I want (in my ability of course…). The problem is that I am not good at making fried stuff. To be honest, I never made any authentic Chinese dishes by myself. Though my mom did teach me before I went to college, I was actually watching instead of doing. Now it is time for me to learn it. There are many recipes online but it takes a long time to comprehend and make it.
Egg fried rice is a classic Chinese dish. The first time that egg fried rice was recorded dates back to 200 B.C. It was said that an emperor liked egg fried rice very much and he named it as Fragmental-gold Rice because good fried rice looks like gold. Anyway, I chose this because it was fairly easier to learn than other advanced dishes.
I steamed some white rice at first. When it was done, I waited a night to let the rice dehydrate. This is the most important part to make fried rice that many people are not aware of. If you make fried rice using the hot white rice, then it will taste like a pasta… It is kind of gross. After a night, the rice would be hard and dry. It’s not supposed to be that soft. There are two ways of making egg fried rice: egg WITH rice or egg AND rice. This is subtle because they are very similar but the result will be totally different. Egg WITH rice is like golden rice, and you can barely eggs. Egg AND rice may be white and there are pieces of eggs. The first time I made that was Egg WITH rice. Actually I think making them seperate is better.
To make Egg-AND-rice style, I put three eggs in the pot and after one minute, I added the dry white rice. Adding some other veggies like cabbage and carrot is a good way to make the rice colorful and healthy. Also, it will be better if the ham is added. After frying everything for 20 minutes over medium heat.
Cooking is such a nice thing.