By: Chef Craig Wong
(This recipe was originally published in “Toronto Life”)
Ingredients
- ½ pound of shrimp
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups of cooked, cooled rice
- ½ cup diced pineapple
- 1 cup spinach
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 ounces soy sauce
- 2 ounces of neutral oil such as canola or grapeseed
Directions
It’s best if you cook the rice the night before. Spread your rice in a baking tray and leave it in the fridge for a good night’s sleep.
The next step: choose your pan. A carbon-steel pan is ideal, but a deep, non-stick frying pan is a good option. A well-seasoned cast-iron can also work, although it might require a bit more oil to keep the rice from sticking.
At the restaurant, we’ll cook everything together in a single wok, but a home stove doesn’t get hot enough for that. So, instead I prepare the fried rice “paella-style,” which means prepping each ingredient separately, then combining everything at the end.
- Peel your shrimp.
- Heat up some grapeseed oil, and put shrimp in the pan. As the shrimp sizzles, bring the temperature of the oil down.
- Add crushed garlic and season with salt.
- After about a minute and a half, flip the shrimp. Once they begin to curl and turn opaque remove them from the heat. Cook them to about 95% denseness.
- Add mushrooms with some salt and garlic. Season liberally.
- Crack and beat your eggs.
- The egg component is the trickiest part of this dish. As the salt-seasoned egg mixture bubbles in the oil, use your spoon to drag the cooked potion around the pan, thereby forcing the still-runny yolk into the heat.
- The eggs should be cooked harder than you’d cook eggs for a scramble.
- If the eggs are under cooked, they’ll just blend into the rice — and I love big hunks of egg in my fried rice.
- Toss the pineapple into the pan for a quick sear so it can caramelize slightly.
- Finally, it’s time for the most important ingredient: the rice.
Make sure not to overcrowd the pan, though! - Make your rice in batches to keep the rice from turning mushy. Add a bit more oil here — the rice should look shiny.
- Then, cook for another two to three minutes until the rice is heated thoroughly.
- Now, you can kill the heat and season the rice with soy sauce.
- Then throw the rest of the ingredients, including the spinach, into pan.
- After a quick stir, the fried rice is ready to be served.
