A dish I was introduced to in Toronto is Cantonese Fried Rice with salt Fish.
It is really good, and one does not have to bother with soaking the fish in water
Salted fish can be found in Asian storeat a premium price but a little goes a long way and they keep for long long time in the fridge.
Here is a recipe using chicken and salt fish.
I used to add chinese sweet sausage to mine
If you like a good fried rice and you love anchovies, then this Chicken and Salted fish fried rice was made for you! The salted fish adds a more delicate yet delightfully anchovy-shrimp taste that is unique and delicious
NOTE: Chinese salt fish has been incriminated for cancer of nasopharynx but this may be for those who eat it a lot as well as the high incidence of nasopharyngeal and stomach caner among Chinese and Japanese.
I big fave for me is kimchee fried rice with a fried egg on top.
I also love Thai style crab fried rice with smokey wok hey permeating the rice.
A technique I have used for years is frying a very thin omelet made with soy sauce as a seasoning and rolling it into a cigar shape and then cutting it into strips then making fried rice and putting these cigar strips (either as strips or still rolled up as florets) on top. It looks pretty and it’s a way to add egg with out having to perfectly stirfry the rice with egg in it, a step that I have sometimes found challenging.
This was my typical fried rice. I always start with a base of some protein, in this case it was Surimi, onions, garlic, frozen peas, some chopped red pepper. One item always gets added to balance the dark soy is a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.
I love fried rice, but don’t eat it frequently, and almost never from a restaurant. I prefer my own and keep it pretty simple. I scramble a couple of eggs and set them aside, then fry a finely chopped onion in lots of butter. Once it’s browned, I add the rice (always leftover - freshly cooked is too moist) and cook until it is hot through and crisping in places. Add the cooked eggs, a little soy sauce, a healthy shot of Sriracha and some chopped scallions, toss to combine and devour. If I have leftover meat of some kind I’ll sometimes add that, or fry up some thick cut bacon or Chinese dry sausage to add.
My husband loves takeout fried rice but around here (NYC metro), they always make it with yellow rice, which tastes like it was cooked with Goya Sazon or another similar seasoning. Imo it has a really weird flavor that does not belong in Chinese food. It also frequently includes frozen peas and carrots, which I find repulsive. Since we mostly low carb, when I order Chinese I typically request white or brown rice with my meal, which I freeze for future fried rice indulgences. Frozen and thawed rice tends to be a little dry, so it makes perfect fried rice.
Southern Chinese treasures female crab red roe ( coral) especially when they are firm. One way we cook them is to slightly saute them with whisky and if desired, add them to fried rice. That is one of the most expensive dish other than the treasured bird’s nest and sharks fin soup.
Living on the Patuxent, an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay ( I am 30 miles downstream from the mouth of the bay), crabs are plentiful here and my location is one of the best for crabbing. However, female crabs are forbidden to be harvested, thrown back so they can reproduce . In the rare instance that we find a female crab that we pulled out and failed to throw back, if I see the red roe, I cherish it. Even the male crab’s greenish liver, called tomalley is a delicacy as far as I am concerned. When we have crab feast, I always see people tossing them away, I would just ask them to toss it my way for me and my babies who loves them also.
Chinese are always thrifty when it comes to food. We seldom throw anything away. Fried rice is a way to use old cooked rice, adding left over vegetables, meat etc. You will find that a small amount of garlic powder added to the rice when it is cooking ( of course you can add garlic) really jazzes it up as it is distributed among the kernels of rice more evenly I think.
I used to make fried rice quite regularly, but it’s rare now, since I’m reducing carbs. I happened to have quite a bit leftover from take out this week.
I also used to eat the tomalley from our local Dungeness crabs, but I am often warned about that; something about toxins or contaminants. Is that a concern with the Chesapeake blue crabs? I used to eat them when I lived in DC, but couldn’t afford to eat many.
Tomalleys from Main lobsters are considered too
Here is an excerpt
The tomalley in general can be consumed in moderation (as with the livers of other animals). It can, however, contain high levels of PCBs which can give a number of negative health effects in large concentrations. It may also contain toxins that are associated with paralytic shellfish poisoning (saxitoxin and gonyautoxin). Those toxins do not leach out when the lobster is cooked in boiling water. The toxins responsible for most shellfish poisonings are heat- and acid-stable, and thus are not diminished by cooking.
I love them but as I say, the female crabs are usually thrown back into the river when we harvest our crabs ( had a lot of crab feast 2017 but son too busy to bother with them 2018 , the few crabs that were in our pier early season last year when he put out the pot was give away to neighbors who were offered them for free if they come and pull them out. Then, he decided to pull the crab pots out) . I do eat the tomalleys in moderation, usually only the ones I shell for myself. It is just an American thing
I like to cook huge prawns with shells and head on when I make paella but I can see the disgust on friends who think they look funny and throw them out rather than suck on the delicious heads. So, I just use a few as garnish for myself . Same with the crab tomalleys.
