Chicken fried rice

Before you start

• the rice cooked the day before, cooled fast and kept in the fridge
• a wok or your widest pan — and everything chopped before it is lit

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 170gjasmine rice
• 180gchicken thighs
• 2eggs
• 1½ tbspoil
• 4spring onions
• 3garlic cloves
• 100gpeas
• 1carrot
• 2 tbspsoy sauce
• to tastewhite peppercorns
• 1 tspsesame oil

Method

6 steps

1. boil · 20m walk away

   The day before: rice rinsed and cooked, then spread out thin on a tray so it cools quickly and goes into the fridge within the hour. Cooked rice left standing warm on the side is the classic way to make people ill, and reheating it later does not undo that.

2. rest · 8 hours walk away

   Covered in the fridge overnight. The grains dry out and separate, which is exactly what the pan wants.

3. chop · 10m

   Chicken diced small, carrot finely diced, garlic minced, spring onions cut and the green kept back from the white. Eggs beaten in a cup. All of it lined up beside the hob before the pan goes anywhere near the heat.

4. fry · 6m

   Pan as hot as it goes, oil in, chicken spread out and left to colour before it is moved, and cooked right through — no pink anywhere — then pushed to the side while the egg is scrambled in the space.

5. fry · 7m

   Rice in, broken up with the back of the spatula, and tossed until every grain is hot right through and some of them are starting to catch and pop against the metal. Carrot, peas and the white of the onion through it.

6. finish · 2m

   Soy round the edge of the pan rather than into the middle so it caramelises on the way in, white pepper, sesame oil and the green of the onion off the heat.