How to make Lower Calorie Fried Rice that still tastes good.

welcome back to episode 2 of the lower-calorie series today we're covering fried rice an absolute gem of a dish first we'll make the restaurant style version to establish a baseline of calories and more importantly understand the underlying techniques of how it's made then we'll analyze where we can make lower calorie substitutions while maintaining the highest level of taste adherence to the original version hey everyone I'm Ethan a home cooking nerd who likes find better ways to cook and share them with all of you and welcome to all the new people to the channel over the past week the support has been absolutely ridiculous to say the least you all are making a dream come true literally in front of my eyes so I truly truly do appreciate it let's hop into the video we're doing fried rice today and basically for the restaurant style version I combined the recipe from the professional chef with techniques learned from Chinese cooking and demystified so if you guys want a deep dive into Chinese cooking and techniques go check out the channel but without further ado let's make some fried rice so here's what fried rice may look like in a restaurant first rice is cooked at a dry ratio in this case Chinese cooking demystified uses one point two parts rise to one part water for optimum fried rice texture the starches are washed then the rice is cooked and set on a plate to allow the steam to escape to limit moisture [Music] next it is important to cut the vegetables and proteins to roughly a uniform shape in this case small cubes for the chicken thighs and immense for the onions and garlic as well as a small dice for the carrots mushrooms and peas the chicken is marinated by adding salt sugar soy sauce and oil and mixing that together at the stove a wok is brought to high heat then the heat is turned off and swirled with oil in the pan this is known as long now a technique used to season the pan and keep the food from sticking in stir fries generally it has done each time before frying the protein before the vegetables and the rice first the marinated chicken is fried until just cooked through then it is removed and set aside long now again then the garlic is added until just aromatic then it is followed by the carrots and the onions until they are lightly brown and then lastly the lighter mushrooms are tossed in as well then all the vegetables are removed one last long yow this time beaten egg is added right to the oil until the courage just start to set and then you add in the cooked rice this rice is tossed around and pushed down for two to three minutes where it should become drier without clumpy together by quite literally fry in the rice the rice is then seasoned with sugar soy sauce and a little bit of MSG or chicken bouillon the cooked chicken cooked vegetables and peas are added back to the rice then everything is brought back up to heat then shut up and slice green onions are added as always make sure you taste and adjust salt or soy sauce as you see fit and this is a delicious bowl of fried rice even pieces of texture a glossy exterior from the oil and a fresh bite from the green onion let's take a look at that calorie breakdown so this recipe makes two pretty hefty servings for how I eat because I only eat mainly two meals a day but this could easily be three smaller portions for the calorie breakdown though I'm assuming two servings this brings a big bowl of the restaurant style fried rice to 1021 calories 117 grams of carbs 45 grams of fat and 40 grams of protein as always for the series the calorie breakdown tables are linked in the recipe on the website if you would like to check them out you can do so but let's hop into the substitutions in my lower calorie version I came up with three main areas for substitution first is make rice with more water aka mushy rice so these two plates are both 400 grams of cooked rice but one has 853 calories and one has 533 calories how is that possible well I just changed the ratio of rice to water for the restaurant style version it was 240 grams of dried rice cooked with 200 grams of water and for the lower cal version i used 150 grams of dried rice and 280 grams of water about one part rice 21.85 parts water so even though it is less rice it's the same weight once it is cooked without adding calories because it's just water that begs the question how does using wet and mushy rice affect the final product using mushy ER rice definitely turns the texture of fried rice to lumpy and a little bit sticky compared to the drier uncomfy and glossy ones when you use dry rice here's Chris from Chinese cookie demystified talking a little bit about this now I should note here that I personally totally screwed up and forgot to cook this rice here at a dry ratio so all of these rice dishes that we did today are going to be a touch stickier than what you usually so just check out the yang Jo fried rice in video for what the ideal rice texture should look like so texturally it may not be ideal but that's cutting 320 calories out while maintaining the same weight of total fried rice and hey some of you may like the lumpy sticky version taste and texture are ultimately subjective the next substitution is to use cooking spray instead of oil for the long nail you see cooking spray has zero calories as long as you spray less than a third of a second so it will always be zero calories no matter how many times you spray zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero okay in reality Pam says a one second spray has about eight calories so that's the assumption that I'll be working with by replacing a one second spray with twenty milliliters of peanut oil it's one hundred and fifty fewer calories each time what do we lose though by not doing the along now with plenty of oil well the texture won't be as glossy you or unctuous and the food may stick in your walk while stir frying I'm also sure Chris and Steph would be pretty disappointed but I did make sure to keep in one of the three stages to perform along with oil and it's right before frying the rice because I think it's critical to actually fry the rice if we're going to call this fried rice so if you do want even lower calories just use the spray all three times the last substitution is used strength with a dry marinade instead of chicken with a wet marinade 6 ounces of shrimp is just 120 calories compared to 275 calories for 6 ounces of boneless skinless chicken thighs and also by using a dry marinade of two grams of salt and two grams of cornstarch instead of soy sauce and oil this is another forty fewer calories and since we already have wet rice with this lower calorie one using a dry marinade helps us import less moisture into the fried rice so in this case it's kind of a win-win all right let's do the step by step process I'll show them side by side with the calorie breakdown and then we'll do the taste test to start prep the rice by pouring 150 grams of rice into a metal strainer and washing off the starches under the sink ensure most of the water drains off so we don't make our rice mushy er than it already is at the stove add the rice and 280 grams of water to the pot and then set the heat on medium and cover it bring this to a boil and after about 20 seconds of boiling turn the heat off take the lid up and place a kitchen towel over the top with the lid back on set a timer for 15 minutes and let the rice steam off the heat once the rice is done spread it out on a plate so the steam escapes again helping to minimize as much moisture as possible while the rice is steaming chopped the devein shrimp into small cubes and place it into a bowl then add 2 grams of salt and 2 grams of cornstarch for the dry marinade mix that and set it aside for the vegetables mince the garlic cloves small dice the onion carrots and mushrooms and weigh out the desired amounts on a plate and you're gonna slice up 1 green onion and beat 2 eggs in a bowl then for the actual rice seasoning add 4 grams of sugar 5 grams of soy sauce and 2 grams of MSG to a bowl now gather every single ingredient on a baking sheet so you're basically an organized badass ready to show this fried rice who's boss but it's also a good chance to check the fridge for any last minute vegetable additions or if you are missing something all right let's go to the stove set the wok over high heat then using a solid 1 second spray just coat the wok in the inside then you're gonna add your shrimp and stir fry it for about 45 to 60 seconds until it is just cooked through then you can remove it and set it aside do another solid spray then you can add in the garlic and you're gonna saute for just 10 seconds until it's aromatic being careful not to burn it then add in the onions and carrots you're gonna stir fry for another 60 or so seconds until they are starting to brown then you can toss in the chopped mushroom for another about 30 to 60 seconds remove the vegetables and set them aside and now it's time for a loooong now bring the heat up to high turn off the heat pour in 20 grams of peanut oil and swirl it around the wok now slowly pour in the beaten egg and cook it until the curds just start to set slide the egg up the side of the walk and now pour in the rice you want to break up the clumps and stir it constantly for a good two to three minutes so we can fry up that rice and get it a little bit crispy add in the seasoning of soy sauce sugar and msg to the rice and egg then we're gonna add the shrimp cooked vegetables and piece the rice and cook everything for another 15 to 20 seconds to bring it up to temperature finally you can turn off the heat and add in the sliced green onions one final mix and we can serve and enjoy my friends and also don't forget to taste the fried rice it may need a little bit more salt a little bit more sugar or some soy sauce or you can add some more msg in there if you would like so make sure you taste it before you actually serve it to adjust that to your taste preferences now let's do that calorie breakdown like I said earlier I'm assuming two large servings of fried rice so for the low-cal version it is 585 calories 80 grams of carbs 17 grams fat and 27 grams of protein so pretty solid and here's a side by side view compared to the restaurant style version and then let's give these guys a taste test taste test on best time of the video so we have the locale version with the shrimp and stuff on the right then we have the higher cal version with the chicken thighs the extra oil and things on the left so let's keep it short and simple give these taste I do love me some fried rice oh my gosh all right now the low-cal version [Music] all right so very interesting on what's going on here so taste wise very similar taste profiles I mean we cuz we didn't really change much out of that we use msg we use soy sauce we use salt we use sugar wouldn't really change much but it's the texture that really makes a big difference and it's really due to that dry rice that we use in this one and the X extra oil so this is kind of unctuous and the rice kernels have a little bit of a bite to them which is really kind of what you're after in like a traditional fried rice on the other hand this one is it's much moister because of that that rice it just kind of it's a little sticky kind of clumpy but I've never actually tried to fried Rice's like this side by side I mean not that really I guess many people would unless they're trying to experian themselves but I know that this is how I used to make fried rice before I started to kind of venture over into dry rice ratios but I didn't realize how much of a big difference that actually mates and it's not to say that this is bad at any means because it's not like I would crush this and I'm going to crush it but it's just it's just a completely different texture and some of you actually may like this better but if you've never tried using dry rice and a good bit of oil in your fried rice definitely give this restaurant style a shot and I mean it's really quite quite astonishing just how big of a difference there are that being said though this one is I think it's 585 calories I don't know I put in the video but I forget what I have so it's almost half the calories of this one which is pretty astonishing because I'm telling you they taste great both of them the main differences are really just the texture so you could kind of find some middle ground between the two maybe use a little bit more water than than the one point two parts and maybe like halfway in between and that's your happy medium so you cut a little bit of calories but you still get a drier rice overall but with all that being said both absolutely delicious recipes and really knowing how to cook a good fried rice is a valuable valuable skill because it's such an easy way to use up random leftover vegetables or like meats in the fridge and just throw it all together with some rice or some soy sauce and stuff I like mine with sriracha so I'm going to to put some sriracha on mine anyway hopefully you guys are enjoying the series I know I'm having a lot of fun making it and really trying to analyze these recipes and see where we can cut down calories or a1c while still making a very delicious and making it really as close as possible to that original version and drop some comments down below on dishes that you want to see me cover next that's gonna wrap it up for this one I will catch you in the next one peace [Music]

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 697,285

Keywords: fried rice, lower calorie fried rice, chicken fried rice, shrimp fried rice, ethan chlebowski, shrimp fried rice chinese style, chinese cooking, chinese cooking fried rice, rice recipes, stir fried rice, shrimp stir fry, low cal, low calorie meals, low calorie fried rice, low cal fried rice, chicken fried rice recipe, fried rice recipe

Id: HulTmlMThWw

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 08 2020