Chicken fried rice

Chinese New Year is just a few days away.
Will you be celebrating it by ordering a takeaway or buying ready-made meals? There are lots of promotions in supermarkets at the moment. But cooking your own Chinese feast could be a great fun, throwing together delicious meals, where you know exactly what goes inside the dish.
Chicken fried rice is absolutely delicious, yet so easy to prepare. You can always double the quantities if you are cooking for a bigger family.
A couple of days ago I had an email from Wing Yip, asking if I would be interested in trying some of their products and getting creative during the festivities. Wing Yip is widely recognised as the UK's leading Oriental grocer with four sites in Birmingham, Manchester, Croydon and Cricklewood. They also have an online store, thus "bringing traditional Oriental cuisine one step closer to UK homes".

I was already planning to do a feast for the Chinese New Year. The year of the Monkey is coming, and being a Monkey according to the Chinese horoscope, I consider it my year, and a good occasion to celebrate.

I googled for fried rice dishes, and came across a tasty recipe for Chicken fried rice on The Telegraph site. I have adapted the recipe, changing some of the quantities and adding mixed mushrooms. The author of the recipe starts by cooking rice. I used pre-cooked rice. Basically it is a glamorised version of an egg-fried rice, but while the egg fried rice is more of a side dish, this recipe is a meal in itself.

Chicken fried rice
Ingredients:
3tbsp groundnut oil
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
3 spring onions
2 cloves of garlic
fresh ginger, about half a finger long
250g chicken breast
100g fresh peas (or frozen)
300g mixed exotic mushrooms (shiro-shimeji, shiitake, golden enoki and eryngii)
2tbsp Chinese fried rice sauce
300g cooked rice
2 medium eggs, scrambled with 1tsp of oil

Heat the wok really well, add the groundnut oil. Finely chop the onion, white bits of spring onions and grate the ginger, put all the ingredients in the wok and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Then add the cubed chicken and sliced mushrooms (smaller ones should be left whole). Season with a bit of salt. Cook for 5 minutes or longer.
In a smaller pan cook scrambled eggs with a teaspoon of oil, or make the flat omelette and then slice it. You will add it later to the rice, just before serving.
Add the rice to the chicken, as well as the Chinese fried rice sauce. Add the peas and sliced mushrooms (smaller ones should be left whole) and stir fry for another 5 minutes, make sure the chicken is cooked through.
Chop the green part of spring onions, scatter over the rice and serve it hot.

Wing Yip Chinese Fried Rice sauce made this recipe more authentic. This sauce is a flavoured soy sauce, with added garlic, black pepper, ginger and other ingredients. It is suitable for vegetarians and has no added monosodium glutamate.

I buy mixed exotic mushrooms in Waitrose, it is a 300g box with a variety of mushrooms. If you cannot find these mushrooms, use shiitake and oyster mushrooms which are available more widely.

Disclosure: I received a selection of Wing Yip products for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are mine.