Hi everyone, welcome to Souped Up Recipes. Today we are making Yangzhou fried rice. A
lot of you think it is just egg-fried rice, which is correct because there are eggs
involved, but it is not as simple as you think. Today I'm going to show you how to
make it authentic by following the industry standard recipe. You didn't hear me
wrong, Yangzhou fried rice has a very strict standard which is published by Yang zhou
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. There is a lot of preparation that needs to be
done ahead of time. Let me go through them one by one. First, is the rice I'm using day-old jasmine
rice. You can also use the leftovers from the Chinese takeout restaurant. If you don't have any,
you can cook some one day ahead. I do have a video that I showed you how I prepare my rice. I'll link
that video right here, you should go check it out later because the fluffiness of the grain really
determines the final result of this dish. Set the rice aside. Next, we will talk about the sea
cucumber which is the luxury part of this recipe. Depending on the size and the quality. The price
can be between 400 to thousands of dollars per pound. Don't worry there is an affordable
replacement, which I will talk about it later. It's not about the price. Most of you may
not have the access to buy it, because I got it shipped from China. Even if you do, you may
not have the time and attention to prepare it. It is an extremely time-consuming process
that includes 48 hours of soaking, one to three hours of simmering, then another 48
hours of soaking. This is why only time-honored local restaurants would do this. Since it
is so complicated, I separated that process into a different video. I'll link it right
here, you can check it out if you're interested. Once the sea cucumber is properly rehydrated.
It will be 10 to 15 times the size. You can compare. We will dice it finely. We
only need 40g for this recipe that will be half of this guy. You can stick the rest into
the freezer and save it for a different dish. Okay, let's talk about the replacement. Just to
be clear the purpose of the standard recipe is to restrict the restaurants, so all the
Yangzhou fried rice has the same taste and consistency, but if you're cooking it at
home, it's okay to switch around the ingredient. Fresh sea scallop is a great replacement because
it is meaty and the texture is pretty close. Just be careful not to overcook it as it will turn into
robbery. This is dried shiitake mushroom and dried sea scallop that I soaked two hours ahead. Could
fresh ones work? The answer is yes, but they won't taste the same anymore because they developed lots
of umami flavor during the dehydration process. These two are the most basic Chinese dried
ingredients. You can buy them in almost any Asian grocery store. I also have a demo video in
that I showed you how to dehydrate your own. I'll link that recipe right here, you can check it out
later. Squeeze the mushroom to remove the water you can combine the liquid and
save it for a different recipe. Dice the mushroom finely. A lot of recipes will tell you to shred the dried
scallop with your hands. I think that is annoying, so I just put it in a small blender
and it will come out nice and fluffy. This is Jinhua ham a special cured meat from
Jinhua Zhejiang province. It was listed as a tribute from the Song dynasty to the Qing dynasty.
If you don't have it, a thick slice of Italian prosciutto would do just as good. We only need
40g of it. I also got 40g of chicken breast here. Put them both into a bowl, drizzle
in some Chinese cooking wine, transfer into a steamer, and let it steam for
20 minutes. 20 minutes later, take the bowl out, you will see some liquid in there. That is
the purpose of this steaming process because we can use it to flavor the rice at the
end. Dice the ham and the chicken finely. 40g of peeled and deveined shrimp. Roughly
dice them as well. Let me explain why don't we keep the shrimp whole. Two reasons,
first, the smaller the ingredients are the more evenly they can be distributed into each
bite, second, the rice is the star of this recipe. Everything else there is just for the auxiliary
purpose. No matter how expensive they are. That's why we cut everything so small, so they
don't take your attention off the rice. Next, are the vegetables I used 40g of diced bamboo
shoot, 40g of diced carrot, and 40g of peas. They were chosen for their color because
Yanzhou fried rice is supposed to have a colorful presentation. If you don't care
about that, you can use whatever you like. They are pre-blanched, I just put them
in boiling water for about 40 seconds because wok cooking is super fast. There's
not enough time to cook these hard vegetables through. Quickly crack two eggs and whisk them
until you don't see any obvious egg white. You may notice that, the measurements for
each of these ingredients are so small. That is because this is a standard recipe for
restaurants. They usually process a large amount and use a little bit of each, when
they take orders from customers. If you're cooking it at home, it's okay to skip
or double a couple of these ingredients. Now, we have everything ready, let's cook. Heat your wok
until smoking hot, add a few tablespoons of oil, Swirl it around so it covers the bottom, pours in
the egg, and stir this with a pair of chopsticks as fast as you can. In about three minutes the
egg will be crumbled into these small little bits. That is exactly what we want. The
egg pieces should be small and match the size of other ingredients. If not
you can dice it on the cutting board. Turn off the heat and squeeze the egg
with your spatula, so you can get rid of the oil. This is important because we
don't want the fried rice to come out oily. Set the egg aside. Check how much oil you have
left. I got about a tablespoon which is enough. If not you can add a little more. Turn the heat back
on high, toss in the Jinhua ham, shredded scallop, diced shiitake mushroom, sea cucumber,
shrimp, and chicken. Although the ham and the chicken are already cooked. Sauteing them for
a couple of minutes will activate more flavors. Add the cooked day-old rice. Keep
stirring on high heat for a few minutes. Make sure you use a large wok because
it really makes a big difference. Thoroughly stirring the ingredients in a super
hot wok will create a complex smoky aroma. We call it wok hay, also known as the breath of the wok.
Without that your fried rice is missing the soul. When you see some grains dancing and
jumping at the bottom of the wok like that, you can add the blanched vegetables and the egg. Add the steaming liquid at this moment. That is going to help to mangle
everything together, keep stirring, then add some salt to taste. I used 1 tsp plus 1/4
tsp. Before serving, sprinkle some diced scallion, give it a final toss, and your fried rice is done. Look at this, the rice is so fluffy
each grain is separated individually. Thanks to the YouTuber uncle roger. Now I
got so many people commenting on my fried rice recipes and asking me where is the MSG.
The truth is we don't use MSG in authentic Yangzhou fried rice. Let me explain why, in
this recipe, the sea cucumber, scallop, shrimp, shiitake mushroom, chicken, and egg have
a high content of flavor amino acids, such as glycine, alanine, and glutamic acid. If
we season them with salt, they become the sodium salt of amino acids. Ham is a piece of protein
that is cured by salt, so it already contains lots of amino acid salt. The full name of MSG is
monosodium glutamate. It is an artificial and pure single type of amino acid salt. If you add it to
a dish, that is already well balanced with all kinds of natural flavor amino acid salt. It's not
going to do anything, that's why we don't use MSG. I love this fried rice. From each bite, you can
taste the character of the different ingredients, such as the greenness of the sea cucumber,
the crunchiness from the bamboo shoot, the freshness of the shrimp, and the sweetness
of the carrot and piece. While the rest of the umami ingredients are pleasantly pungent.
Everything together is supporting the rice. This is going to be the best fried rice you will
ever have. Don't forget to check the link for my Carbon Steel Wok
as it will help you to achieve that wok hay effect and make your fried rice authentic. I have been
using it on my channel for years now. I am proud to recommend it to you and I promise it will
make a big difference to your Chinese recipes. I hope you give this a try soon. As always,
you can print the recipe on my channel soupdumprecipes.com
Don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel. Thank you for watching,
and I'll see you next time. Bye~
