Best Authentic Fried Rice

Mary Jane's Authentic Chicken

Fried Rice Before Green Onions are Added

The reason I say "authentic" fried rice is because even though I'm American, born in the US, my family lived in the Orient for 3 years when I was a child. We lived in Zamboanga City, Philippines where we ate Chinese Fried Rice along with other dishes at a Chinese restaurant every Sunday after church. The restaurant, at a Hotel on the edge of the water, sat overlooking the Pacific ocean. Such a beautiful, peaceful scene engraved in my memory, is hard to describe. And OH, the smell of that Chinese food is something I've rarely experienced in the US and I can always tell by the smell, if its going to be authentic or not! . 

A very poor, sweet, little old lady insisted on paying for our family (of 6) to eat there at her expense. "Auntie" was so special and thoughtful to do that for us. We learned to love Chinese food there but we also got to visit Hong Kong and Japan. The Filipinos had their style of fried rice too (usually with shredded cabbage, garlic and bok choy) so we got to experience different types and flavors. 
It's really difficult, though, in my opinion to find what I call  that "authentic" Chinese taste. I've had 100's of different versions of fried rice over the years, whether it be at a restaurant, in cookbooks or the web. I was never satisfied with the taste til I decided "toasted" sesame oil was the ingredient that made Chinese food taste authentic to me. Some people don't use as much in their recipes as I do, but I use a lot of it, even more than what I wrote down for this recipe. So add more if you want! You won't normally see water chestnuts in fried rice, but I love it for the crunch. The onions and garlic, though,  are always in authentic fried rice. You can cook your plain white rice the day before (rinsed 2-3 times first) or you can cook the rice the same day you make the Fried Rice. It's perfectly ok to cook the plain white rice the same day as long as you separate it and maybe dry it out in the oven on a cookie sheet first or some people put the cookie sheet in the fridge. It turns out just as good when I don't rinse the rice or cook it the day before, but rinsing it first takes some of the starches out, which helps it not stick together.

Mary Jane's Authentic
Chinese Fried Rice

Another secret is to use a good rice and my favorite with any dish is Basmati, long grain rice used in Indian cooking that has a nutty taste. It costs more but believe me when I say it is totally worth it! Most Chinese restaurants use a combination of long grain and Jasmine rice. And lastly, I want to say I use this Chicken Fried Rice as a main dish. Please don't put a totally different Chinese dish on top of this. It should stand alone! All the other Chinese dishes such as Cashew Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork, Moo Goo Gai Pan, Almond Chicken, General Tso, Szechuan or Mala Beef and Green Beans, Orange Chicken and other dishes need to be put over steamed rice or what many people call white rice. There are just too many flavors in fried rice that will compete with these other Chinese dishes. They have their own unique flavor. Steamed rice allows you to taste the flavors of the dish you put on top of it. I'm real touchy about this subject! I think  Asian people would agree!

* Whatever you do, do not leave out the TOASTED sesame oil. It might have the word REAL or ROASTED on the bottle *

Ingredients - feeds 6 

Very Important - chop your vegetables up first and place in separate bowls. Then mix the sauce in a bowl and the seasonings in a different bowl and set aside.

Peanut or any neutral oil
Butter

1 cup onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tsps ginger, chopped
4-5 cups cooked cold rice 
2-3 cups fresh chicken breast, cut in          small pieces & set aside in a bowl so        you can tenderize it for 15-30 minutes.    See my note below of how I                        tenderize/marinate it. This step is            optional, but it will be much more             tender and is totally worth it!

FOR A QUICKER VERSION use already cooked frozen chicken, chopped

4 eggs, scrambled
1 can water chestnuts, sliced into strips
¾ cup frozen corn and also 1½ cups           frozen peas and carrots, thawed 

1 cup fresh bean sprouts (it's not easy to find these fresh but an Asian grocery store will have them)

SAUCE - (mix together in separate bowl and set aside). See NOTE about soy sauce bellow.

1½ tsp brown sugar, 4-6 tsp lite soy sauce (or coconut aminos), 1½ tsp dark soy sauce (less salty), 4 tsp TOASTED Sesame oil

SPICE / SEASONING MIXTURE - (mix   in separate bowl and set aside)

2 tsp salt, ¼ tsp ground white pepper, 1 tsp MSG (unless you need it to be GF) 

For Garnish
1-2 Tb toasted sesame seeds
6-8 green onions (raw), chopped 

 (for top after fried rice is cooked. Some    Chinese chefs put the white part of the    green onion with the rice as it's frying    and sprinkle only the green part on         top at the end)

OPTIONAL: after fried rice is done, taste it and add any of the following if you want more flavor)
Oyster sauce, Hoisen sauce and/or Chinese Shaosing cooking wine (most Chinese use this in their fried rice), chili garlic sauce, dash of garlic powder, onion powder, ½-1 tsp fresh grated ginger (I don't like ginger but sometimes use powdered ginger or in the tube), fish sauce. The Chinese use white pepper a lot in their cooking, which gives it a distinct, spicy flavor.
Note: sometimes I use chopped pork, ham, bacon or shrimp, but my favorite is chicken. A combination of pork, chicken and pork is great! To make it even more authentic, marinate pork in Chinese BBQ sauce before frying

NOTE : ABOUT SOY SAUCE

Do not use Kikkoman soy sauce in this fried rice because it's a Japanese soy sauce and has a different flavor profile than Chinese soy sauces and not suited for Chinese style cooking. Lite soy sauce is saltier than dark soy sauce, which is slightly sweeter.

NOTE- TO TENDERIZE MEAT
I used an Asian tenderizing technique called "velveting", which is totally worth it. That's how meats in Chinese dishes are so tender. You just cut up the meat in small pieces (against the grain) and soak it in the following for 15-30 minutes: 3 tsps cornstarch OR baking soda, instead of cornstarch, I could taste the baking soda (after being cooked) and rinsed it off the next time I tenderized the meat. Actually, it's ok not to use baking soda at all, because the cornstarch and other ingredients tenderize the meat just fine.

Mary Jane's Authentic Fried Rice

DIRECTIONS:

Make sure your onions, garlic, water chestnuts and chicken are cut up into separate bowls before you start anything. Believe me, prepping ahead of time will make this easier. 

      This is just some of the  ingredients I  use (I will update these ingredients 

as soon as I can)

Cook cut up chicken in oil on medium high heat in frying pan or wok till 90% done. Remove chicken to another bowl and set aside. In same pan, add 1 tb oil and fry onions, ginger and garlic for 1-2 minutes til tender. Remove this and add to chicken. Next, quickly fry the sliced water chestnuts in same pan then remove and add to chicken. Add another Tb oil to wok and fry the peas, carrots and corn to get them warm for 2 mins. Remove from pan and add to chicken. Put a little more oil in the same pan. Put on medium low and scramble the eggs, stirring constantly. Add to chicken and other ingredients. 

Add 1 Tb butter to wok (helps to brown the rice) and turn heat to high. Add half the rice and stir fry til it is separated and heated. This would be a good time to add half of the meat, ½ vegetables, ½ the eggs and ½ other ingredients that are in sane bowl. After mixing and stirring around while frying the rice on hi heat, remove the rice mixture to another bowl. Then add the other half rice, meat, vegetables and eggs. Repeat above. Add first batch of rice already fried to 2nd batch. Now stir in the sauce and the seasonings and add about 1-2 Tbs Chinese cooking wine around outside of the rice to deglaze sauce in hot pan. We are frying in 2 batches because we do not want to crowd the rice. Having too much rice in the pan will cause it not to separate and toast the right way. (Also add Chinese cooking wine and oyster sauce if you think it needs it)

After stiring first batch of rice together with 2nd batch in wok, taste to see if you need more seasonings or sauce ingredients. If you like spicy things, then add more white pepper. Add toasted sesame seeds and stir. Just before serving, toss in the chopped green onions. Serve immediately. You can either purchase sweet and sour sauce or use my recipe, which I will try to add later! It's also good with the Japanese Yum Yum sauce. Enjoy!

UPDATE: (2/6/2019)
Since I fix a lot of Chinese and Thai foods, I received a larger wok for Christmas. I've needed it for years but still have to "season" it before I use it. 

2020 - I finally seasoned my new wok! But it took me practically all day. That thing is heavy so it wore me out, even though I had help!

                         My New Wok!

Another Recipe Idea:

 1. Another great idea would be to Make Steak Fried Rice using this same recipe, but also adding Shitake mushrooms. Get a ribeye steak, freeze for about 30 minutes and then cut it thinly on the grain.

2. If you like cooked cabbage, add cabbage (funny shredded) with the onions and garlic and saute. When I was growing up, my parents almost always added cabbage to their fried rice and back then I did not like cabbage. But I love it now and am going to add that next time I make this. 

Hope you enjoy my recipe! I have done years of research plus trial and error, searching for secrets and tips to the best Chinese fried rice for you. Let me know if you have any questions!