I ate the best fried rice of my life in Vietnam. The thing that made it so good was these crunchy little bits. They were about the size of a regular grain or rice but they were very crunchy (more crunchy than puffed rice). I'm wondering if this could have been uncooked rice fried in oil. I've tried searching google and can't find anything accurate.
3 Answers
Crust formed on the bottom of the pot deliberately? You put the rice in a very hot stone pot after cooking and let it sit a bit so that the crust develops (Korean version). Or you add some butter up front and cook the rice longer than necessary so a crust develops in the cooking pot itself (Iranian version). Many ways to do this, but I agree it's divine :-)
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1I don't think this is it. I have had rice with a crust in the past and the crunchy parts don't appear as distinct grains like this.– tdammonCommented May 30, 2019 at 17:05
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1I've had the crust broken up and mixed in too, would that not work? Much would depend on whether you use long or short grain rice. Traditional crust would tend to short grain, which would hang together better. But long grain might well stay separate after an attempt at crusting?– user57361Commented May 30, 2019 at 18:27
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1I suppose it could be the broken up crust. However, the crunchy bits are very uniform in size (all about the size of a single rice grain).– tdammonCommented May 30, 2019 at 19:20
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long grain then?– user57361Commented May 30, 2019 at 20:17
They could have been individually deep-fried grains of pre-cooked rice. A salad of these are known in Thailand as nam khao tod, and I expect that the Vietnamese have their own version.
answered Jun 2, 2019 at 0:52
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reading this and the previous answer now I wonder: would it be possible to just confit the rice from raw?– LucianoCommented Jun 3, 2019 at 11:35
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@FuzzyChef I think I will try this. Any idea how to deep fry rice? Maybe just keep tossing it in hot oil in a wok.– tdammonCommented Jun 3, 2019 at 13:10
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@tdammon were the grains dark? I sometimes reach the stage of "fried uncooked rice" when I start a pilaf and forget the rice in the oil for too long. The fried grains get a toasted appearance. When I add water to make the pilaf, they get soft like unfried rice though, so if this is what you had, the grains must have been removed from the bulk of the rice before cooking it.– rumtscho ♦Commented Jan 24, 2021 at 13:37
About types of rice, in fact, there are too many types of rice. They can be categorized by their characteristics: "sticky" (like that in sushi rice), "fluffy" and "fragrant" (like jasmin rice). A type of rice can be both sticky and fragrant, or fluffy and fragrant, or just sticky or fluffy. The rice in fried rice dishes is not sticky rice.
There is no "uncooked rice fried in oil". All rice in fried rice dishes are cooked.
To make the fried rice crunchier, you use cold cooked rice. So you should place cooked rice in the fridge. Cold cooked rice is less likely to stick together when you fry. When the moisture in the rice grains evaporates, you have crunchy fried rice.
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This isn't what I am talking about. This dish has a specific grain that is much crunchier than the rest of the rice. Something is added add the the end that is very crunchy– tdammonCommented Jan 25, 2021 at 21:19
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So, do you mean the cooked rice has the size of a regular uncooked grain or rice?– Dokkan7Commented Jan 26, 2021 at 8:54
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At least, there should be some description about the dish, or all the answers are just guesses. Fried rice is often served with something else, not just plain fried rice. Is it served with deep-fried chicken legs? If yes, the rice is often cooked with chicken stock, instead of plain water. (You boil chicken meat and use the water to cook rice.)– Dokkan7Commented Jan 26, 2021 at 11:26
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Sorry if my explanation lacks detail. The dish I am describing doesn't go by a special name. It is just a style of fried rice. So whether you order seafood fried rice or chicken fried rice the dish will include the crunchy bits. The crunchy bits are not a result of the cooking method. They are an ingredient added at some point during the cooking process and I am trying to figure out exactly what they are. Someone suggested toasted rice paruteabar.com/products/genmai-roasted-rice which was very close to what I am looking for only the genmai is a bit to airy and saturates with steam.– tdammonCommented Jan 27, 2021 at 14:59
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I believe that is the chicken stock. Rice cooked with chicken stock has a yellow color and absorbs some fats.and then when you fry, the rice becomes somehow more crispy than normal white rice.– Dokkan7Commented Jan 28, 2021 at 12:42