The rice matters more than the egg here -- get that right and the rest is quick.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked, cold rice (ideally cooked the day before and chilled)
- 2 eggs
- 1–2 tbsp oil
- Spring onions, sliced
- A handful of frozen peas or other diced veg
- Soy sauce, to taste
Method
- Have everything ready before you start -- this dish moves fast.
- Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan until it's very hot and just starting to shimmer.
- Add the cold rice and stir-fry for a couple of minutes, breaking up any clumps, until it starts to catch slightly at the edges.
- Push the rice to one side, crack the eggs into the gap, and scramble them quickly with a spatula.
- Mix the egg through the rice, then add the peas and spring onions and stir-fry for another 2–3 minutes until everything is piping hot throughout.
- Season with soy sauce to taste and serve straight away.
Why cold rice matters: cooked rice can carry bacteria that survive cooking, so it needs to be cooled quickly and kept in the fridge rather than left standing at room temperature, then reheated only once until it's piping hot all the way through. Freshly cooked hot rice also just goes stodgy in a hot pan, so cold, chilled rice from the fridge works far better here anyway.
Food safety note based on general NHS/gov.uk guidance on cooling and reheating cooked rice.
Related reading
The egg technique here is the same as our scrambled eggs. See all egg recipes.