How to Make Quick Chicken Fried Rice

Quick Fried Rice With Chicken

Let’s see how to make a flavourful Indo-Chinese dish: Chicken fried rice, but the old-fashioned way, the way I’ve been making it for decades. One important thing to remember is that you cannot make fried rice with freshly cooked soft rice. For best results you need to use stale rice, or else, freshly cooked rice that has been cooled completely for around two hours.

This same chicken fried rice recipe can be modified to make vegetable fried rice. Just skip the chicken and increase the quantity of vegetables. I’ve added just onions, carrots and green beans. But you could add in other vegetables like green peas, capsicum, and cabbage.

Do check out my other delicious rice dishes: Chorizo Rice (Goan Choris Pulav) and  Prawn Pulao.

Ingredients

250g (1 ¼ cup) basmati rice

1 tsp salt

1 tsp oil

1 tsp lime juice

150g boneless chicken

⅓ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper powder

½ tsp soya sauce

1 tsp corn flour

4 tbsp oil approx. (1 ½ + 1 + ½ + 1)

3 chopped green chillies

¼ cup chopped green beans

¼ cup chopped carrot

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 ½ tsp crushed ginger

¼ cup chopped onion

1 egg

2 tsp milk

Pinch of salt

Pinch of pepper powder

½ cup chopped spring onion greens

1 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp chilli sauce

2 tsp soya sauce

1 chicken/veg soup cube

½ tsp pepper powder

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp vinegar

Procedure

1. Wash the rice in plenty of water twice. Then soak it in water for around 20 minutes.
2. Cook the rice using around 6 cups of water. To the water, add 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp oil, and 1 tsp lime juice. When the water comes to a boil, add the soaked and drained rice to it. Cook it till it is al dente, meaning around 80% cooked. Drain away the water and then spread the rice on a thali or tray and let it cool completely for around 2 hours.
3. Cut the boneless chicken breast into bit-sized pieces. To this, add the salt, pepper powder, soya sauce, and cornflour and mix everything well so that the chicken pieces are all well covered with the marinade. Cover the chicken and let it marinate for around 15 – 20 minutes.
4. Heat 1 ½ tbsp of oil on medium heat. Add the marinated chicken to it. Sauté the chicken for 1 minute, then lower the heat, cover the wok, and let the chicken cook for around 3-4 minutes. Remove the fried chicken to a plate.
5. To the oil left in the wok, add 1 more tablespoon of it. Add the chopped garlic and cook this on low heat for around 3 minutes till it browns and becomes crisp. (Don’t let it get charred). Remove the fried garlic pieces. (Add these to any vegetable dish or toss them away.) The flavour of the garlic has now got infused into the oil.
6. To this garlic oil, with the heat on medium, add the chopped green chillies and fry these for a few seconds. Add the chopped green beans. (I had added 1 tbsp of water to the green beans and cooked these in the microwave for a minute. Now these green beans won’t need more than 2 minutes to cook in the oil.
7. Add in the carrot, crushed garlic, crushed ginger, and the chopped onion. Mix and fry all of this for a minute or two.
8. Move everything to one side of the pan, add in 1 tsp oil and break an egg over it. Add 2 tsp milk, and a pinch of salt and pepper powder to the egg, and scramble it. Mix the scrambled egg with the vegetables.
9. Mix in the chopped spring onion greens (retaining a little to use as a garnish later on).
10. Mix in the fried chicken pieces, tomato sauce, red chilli sauce, and soya sauce. Mix everything well and then remove the mixture to a bowl.
11. Let the wok dry up with the heat on low. Then add in 1 tbsp of oil. To it, add 2 tsp of sugar. Let the sugar caramelise.
12. Add the cooked rice to the wok and mix it well with the oil and caramelised sugar.
13. Mix the crumbled soup cube and ½ tsp pepper powder with the rice.
14. Add the mixture of vegetables, egg, and chicken. Mix this gently with the rice taking care to see that the grains of rice don’t get crushed.
15. Add 1 tbsp of butter and mix this into the fried rice.
16. Finally, add in 2 tsp of vinegar. Mix this too into the rice.
17. Garnish the chicken fried rice with chopped spring onion greens and then serve it out.

Enjoy!