If you’re down to the last few items in your fridge or haven’t had time to run to the shop recently, try making this easy and tasty dish of Ginger Garlic Shrimp Fried Rice. A simple and satisfying meal can be made with only what you have in your cupboard. If you can chop the ginger and garlic in a food processor, that would be ideal.
Fried Rice, From Good To Great
The years have taught me that the difference between “meh” fried rice and epic fried rice is only a few little, apparently trivial steps. There’s a lot of importance in slowly frying ginger and garlic before adding the rice to stir-fry everything together.
And you should give the rice plenty of time to brown. In order to do this, it must be spread out in a single layer and allowed to toast slowly in the wok’s intense heat.
As an analogy, I’ve learned that the key to making Cantonese banquet-style fried rice with properly dispersed fried egg bits is to pour the raw beaten egg immediately over the rice rather than pre-scrambling.
I can attest that, prior to discovering the secret to excellent fried rice, I ate my fair share of soggy, mediocre fried rice that I cooked myself. A person’s culinary maturity, at least in my opinion, may be gauged by how well they prepare fried rice.
Although some may frown upon it, my granny insists that shrimp is an excellent complement to ginger fried rice. In my role as a responsible granddaughter, I added a few to the mix. To top it all off, shrimp fried rice is usually delicious no matter where you eat it. Obviously.
Men, you have got to try this fried rice with ginger and garlic. You probably already have most of the ingredients on hand, and it’s full of ginger and garlic flavor.
Ingredients:
- 280g of peeled and deveined shrimp
- 55g of minced ginger
- 4 beaten eggs
- 3 finely chopped scallions
- 5 cups of cooled cooked white rice
- ¼ cup of vegetable oil; plus 1 tablespoon
- ¼ cup of minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon of Shaoxing wine
- 1 teaspoon of soy sauce
- ⅛ teaspoon of ground white pepper
Instructions:
- Begin by placing your wok over very high heat. Get a spoonful of oil and use it to coat everything. The shrimp should be stir-fried quickly until they are just done. The ideal shade would be a slightly transparent pink. Try not to overcook them (you will be adding them back to the wok later). Put them in a basin and put the bowl aside.
- First, heat a quarter cup of oil in a wok set over medium heat. Then, toss in the ginger and cook until it’s fragrant (the color will darken, but the ginger will not necessarily become crisp). Put the garlic in next. You want it to be lightly toasted, so if it’s still white after a few minutes, give extra time in the toaster. The entire time required to sauté the ginger and garlic is around 10 minutes.
- Now put the wok over high heat and add the rice. Cook the rice in a wok until the ginger and garlic combination is uniformly dispersed. The rice is best toasted when spread out in a single layer. Stir-fry the rice and redistribute it every once in a while. Then, add the soy sauce, the Shaoxing wine, and the white pepper to the rice and mix well. Stir-fry for another three to five minutes.
- The next step is to equally spread the eggs over the rice and immediately stir-fry everything together. If you use one egg, the egg will cover the rice, and you won’t get big clumps of egg. If you’d rather have the eggs already scrambled before this point, you can do that.
- Stir fry until the shrimp and scallions are evenly distributed, then serve.