Facts About Yangzhou fried rice
Yangzhou fried rice, Yangchow fried rice, or Yeung Chow fried rice is a popular Chinese-style wok fried rice dish in many Chinese restaurants throughout the world. It is commonly sold in the UK as special fried rice and in the US as house fried rice.
Ingredients
The ingredients vary, but some of its staple items include:
- Cooked rice (preferably day old because freshly cooked rice is too sticky due to higher water content)
- Diced cha shao/char siu pork or lap cheong
- Scallions (spring onions or green onions), chopped, including green end
- fresh vegetables such as kai-lan, carrots, peas, corn, bamboo shoots, etc.
- Egg
Sea cucumber and crab meat are traditional elements. The peas may be a replacement for the green onions. Some recipes include Shaoxing wine. Some western Chinese restaurants also use soy sauce to flavor the rice, and add meat such as chicken.
History
Yangzhou fried rice is a perhaps the most well-known dish of the city of Yangzhou, Jiangsu province. The recipe was invented by Qing China's Yi Bingshou (1754–1815) and the dish was named Yangzhou fried rice since Yi was once the regional magistrate of Yangzhou. It is often served with thousand fish soup. There are two ways of cooking the dish in terms of the preparation of the egg scrambled. The first variation is known as "silver covered gold", in which the egg is scrambled separately before mixing with the rice. The alternative "gold covered silver" method is described as pouring the liquid egg over the rice and vegetables mix and frying the two together. Various traditions call for a rice–egg ratio of 5:1 or 3:1.
Failed world record attempt
In October 2015, as part of the 2500th anniversary of the town of Yangzhou, an attempt was made in Yangzhou at beating the previous world record for fried rice set in 2014 by the Turkey culinary federation. The attempt, made by the World Association of Chinese Cuisine resulted in 4,192 kilograms (9,242 lb) of Yangzhou fried rice being produced by a team of 300 cooks. The organizers initially planned to send the end product to five companies for consumption by their staff. However, about 150 kilograms (330 lb) of it ended up as pig swill, as it had been cooked for four hours and was felt unsuitable for human consumption. As per the organizers' intents, the rest was sent to local canteens. However, due to a part of it being sent to feed animals, the world record attempt was disqualified, as a Guinness World Records spokesman said that it had become obvious that the dish was not fit for human consumption.