China's Most Famous Fried Rice Recipe - Yangzhou Chaofan (扬州炒饭)

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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~
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Channel: Souped Up Recipes
Views: 106,550
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Keywords: fried rice, fried rice recipe, how to make fried rice, chinese fried rice, how to cook fried rice, how to prepare fried rice, authentic chicken fried rice, how to make chinese fried rice, 炒饭, chow fan, soupeduprecipes, 炒飯, egg fried rice, how to make egg fried rice, egg fried rice recipe, 蛋炒飯, chinese egg fried rice, 蛋炒饭, recipe for egg fried rice, how to make egg fried rice at home, best egg fried rice recipe, Yangzhou fried rice, Yangzhou chaofan, 扬州炒饭, Best fried rice recipe
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Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)
Published: Wed Jun 16 2021
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