NOVEL NEXT 268 - Golden Fried Rice
“Hello comrades! Today is a very special episode. We have the obligatory golden fried rice competition,” Long Suah teased the audience on the sixth episode of the Great Chef. “Now Nicholas, why golden fried rice? It seems so simple?”
“My dear Ms. Long, golden fried rice is the hallmark of a good chef,” Nicholas replied. “And it is also famously presented in many, many novels and entertainment mediums. Why? Because it’s such a simple dish that almost everyone can make, but not so easy to perfect.”
“I see, with ten contestants left, you want to distinguish the amateurs from the real professionals?” Long Suah wondered.
“Exactly!” Nicholas replied. “Fried rice was developed during the 6th century, served in the palace for emperors and empresses of the Sui Dynasty. It's amazing that we didn't have this challenge in the previous season.”
The ten contestants plus Li Yun stood by their cooking stations– gearing up for the next challenge. Their pose and positioning were staged by the camera crew to create a dramatic effect as they waited for the signal to start..
“The basic ingredients of golden fried rice are white rice, eggs, and oil, but without much preparation, can they get all the necessary ingredients within a minute?” A bell ding suddenly. In the background, Nicholas' voice narrated over a clip of the contestants scrambling to grab their ingredients.
The camera shifted to Li Yun. The one-minute limit was not good for Li Yun, who was used to taking a long time to find the perfect ingredients. Luckily, he wasn’t a contestant, so he took whatever looked good from the available pantry room.
“All right, Hun Lun, same as before, I measure, you cut,” said Li Yun.
Hun Lun nodded nervously. He still couldn’t understand why his boss, who seemed so proficient with a scalpel, wasn't able to cut the julienne strips on spring onions. The leafy greens ended up like coarsely chopped confetti.
“You should cut it on the long bias,” Li Yun instructed when Hun Lun was about to chop the onions.
“Long bias?” Hun Lun was confused; he wasn’t a chef.
“Cut it diagonally in the direction of the grain,” Li Yun replied. “If you cut against the grain, you will damage the fiber structure, which produces a sharper taste. It’s more pronounced in onions, but the same concept works with spring onions.”
“Ah, I see,” Hun Lun nodded and followed his direction.
As Hun Lun cut the onions, Li Yun inspected the eggs that Hun Lun had cracked open and separated the whites from the yokes. Li Yun took a toothpick and tasted all the yolks, selecting only the ones with the most protein.
The flavor in egg yolk came from dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl trisulfide. Dimethyl trisulfide by itself was obnoxious, but in the correct combination, it could reproduce the scent of the sea, sweet corn, and fruits. Li Yun chose four eggs with the perfect balance of the compounds.
The taste was generally neutral and the main reason to use egg whites was for texture. Li Yun tasted each individual egg white to find the perfect egg whites. The egg whites contained ten percent protein and ninety water, but it was the protein that Li Yun was tracing, specifically the amino acids that attract water and the amino acids that repel water. The properties were important to creating a stable and soft structure once it was beaten.
Egg whites, when beaten, untangled the amino acids of the protein that worked to trap air bubbles in place. After Li Yun beat the egg in the mixture, he gave the contents to Hun Lun to bake. With the eggs baked, the golden-brown clouds produced a combination of crispy crunch and soft fluffy texture. Baking was healthier and offset the oils used in the fried rice.
“What type of rice is everyone using?” Nicholas narrated in the background. “Traditional golden fried rice is made from jasmine long rice, specifically leftovers rice. However, none of the contestants have leftover rice, so how will the contestants handle the stickiness of the fresh batch of cooked rice?”
Leftover rice had less starch and didn’t crump together like cooked rice. After cooking the rice, most contestants rinsed the rice under cold water. The cold water stopped the cooking process and allowed it to remain firm instead of chewy.
The camera panned away as Li Yun instructed Hun Lun to season the wok. Seasoning was a common technique to coat the wok with oil to prevent food from sticking. Chef Kaiyi in Pao Lie’s restaurant often seasoned the wok three times before using it for the day. Chef Kaiyi wanted to impress Li Yun. Little did he know, Li Yun didn’t understand the concept of taste.
Hun Lun, as instructed, heated the wok to a high temperature and then added the refined coconut oil. Most chefs preferred neutral oils like peanut or vegetable oil, but Li Yun preferred coconut oil because the compounds can penetrate the starch and turn it into resistant starch. Resistant starch was not easily digestible into glucose by the body, hence it reduced the calorie intake and healthier. The process also replicated what would happen to cooked rice when it was cooled overnight.
With the seasoned wok and ingredients, Hun Lun was ready to fry the ingredients. The camera panned away, so the audience didn’t know that Hun Lun was the one working with the wok. To Li Yun’s defense, he was drilling Hun Lun to toss the wok like a cox on a boat, commanding the rowing rhythm of the crew members. The rhythm that Li Yun drilled into Hun Lun should not be underestimated. It was based on the aroma that Li Yun could smell from his distance. As soon as the ingredients touched the wok, the high heat cooked and released the flavor of the eggs. On Li Yun’s next signal, Hun Lun tossed the rice before the heats could overcook the rice, damage the flavor, and decompose the eggs into dangerous compounds like iron sulfide. The eggs released an aroma in the air right before the compounds in the egg were about to break apart.
The rice and eggs flipped into the air, cooling the ingredients. The quick temperature change quickly sealed in the flavors. The process repeated as Hun Lun added in the rest of the ingredients. Eventually, after a few minutes, the fried rice was done. Hun Lun heavily breathed by the side of the counter, wondering why his job as a driver had taken him to the edge of the kitchen, and near the floor, almost exhausted from the extensive wok workout.
The immaculate-looking golden fried rice on the serving dish twinkled before the audience’s eyes. It should be noted that the editors spent an additional 2 hours to add extra sparkles to the video. It was so cleanly done that most of the audience forgot it was cgi.
The other contestants also did well, but it was truly the first time the other contestants thought Li Yun was a God in the kitchen. Long Suah, Nicholas, and the guest judge had no idea how to place Li Yun. Long Suah and Nicholas both knew he wasn’t the real contestant, so rewarding him with the prize would be odd. However, the guest judge, Chef Pierre, was so enthralled by the golden fried egg that it would be suspicious if he didn’t win. The rice worked well together to create the gold browning and crunch when the rice was fried.
In the end, Li Yun won the sixth episode and was awarded a year's supply of eggs.
Following the episode, the short preview promised to reveal the identity of the mysterious third judge with absolute taste. The short clip circulated the net and stirred a storm over the net.