There’s a secret to making flawless fried rice

It’s easier than you might think to make this beloved Chinese classic

A friend of mine returned from teaching in Beijing and asked me if I was an egg first or an egg last person.

I immediately knew that he was referring to cooking fried rice. I told him that I started as an egg first person, but had switched to being an egg last person.

The history I have with fried rice is long and filled with failures and triumphs.

My family would venture to the Marco Polo restaurant a few times a year and we rarely strayed from almond chicken guy ding, sweet and sour pork, a vegetable chow mein, egg rolls and fried rice. The rice was brown from soy sauce and deliciously salty.

My mother would occasionally cook what I’ll call Chinese-inspired food and serve it with Chinese Style Dainty Rice in a can. I could barely contain my excitement when the red and white box appeared because I was allowed to make it.

The rice was vacuum-sealed and made a satisfying hiss when pierced by the can opener. Inside the can, there were firm little grains of rice. They were transformed into delicious plump grains after being heated in a frying pan with the seasoning packet, oil and water. It was a miracle.

In my teens, my peers also had a fascination with fried rice. While other teens were drinking and getting high on Friday night, we were at each other’s homes, trying to crack the code.

We used converted rice or instant rice because that’s what was in our parents’ kitchen cupboards.

The converted rice was usually undercooked, overcooked or burned, and the instant rice only resembled rice in appearance.

Add to that big glugs of western soy sauce and you have a brown, salty mess. We didn’t care; we thought we were culinary geniuses.

Across from my high school, Ming’s restaurant was mobbed at lunch and after school with obnoxious teens, yelling out orders for french fries, fried rice and toast.

One late afternoon, I was sitting in view of the kitchen and saw Mrs. Ming take a large container out of the fridge filled with beautifully separate grains of rice that were dyed brown by soy sauce and dotted with flecks of green onion.

Mr. Ming tossed a scoop into his smoking wok and in seconds, a beautiful dish of fried rice was in front of me. Cook rice, coat it with soy sauce, refrigerate.

That was the secret. I could now rest in peace.

My Thai mentor Vanipha shook me out of my Canadian-chinese fried rice daze. I watched her fry garlic in oil until it was golden brown, then scramble in an egg.

She added cooked rice and fried it until it was glistening with oil. Fish sauce, a drop of oyster sauce, a liberal amount of black pepper, green onions and finely diced seeded tomato were the crowning touch. This was my second coming of fried rice.

My current favourites are the pristinely white, Chinese-style fried rice seasoned only with salt and its opposite, kimchee fried rice.

New favourites are yet to be discovered and while I’m waiting, I’ll get a package of Dainty Rice to see if it lives up to my memory of it.