Progress as of Feb 19th Part 2: Fried Rice

As I said before, I made fried rice. It was at the behest of my mother, who is (perhaps quite wisely) using my project as an opportunity to have me cook things she wants to eat. Our tastes are generally in agreement, so this does not really bother me. This was loosely based off of a recipe from Yahoo (http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/4-quick-healthy-400-calorie-recipes-dinner-171600309.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CTxrCpRnHsA3KIhmolQ) for a shrimp fried rice made with brown rice.

I did not have hoisin sauce so I made a substitute with soy sauce, sesame oil, and ume plum vinegar. (Which did not approximate Hoisin sauce at all, but it was the closest I could have gotten with the ingredients at hand).

The only things noteworthy about making this was the cooking of the shrimp. Cooking shrimp is actually very interesting, because of how quickly the shrimp change color from grey to pink. I really should have taken pictures of that process.

Eggs, green onions, carrots, and sauces.

Some of the ingredients, rice, shrimp, carrots, mushrooms, etc.

The final product!

The result wasn't spectacular. We used fresh rice, and thus it was too moist. Fried rice is generally better with day-old rice. The shrimp were too large, the dish would have been much improved with smaller shrimp. I also prefer white to brown rice.

It is also worth noting that this is a recipe by and for white people on diets, therefore it is of very low authenticity. The procedure given by the recipe is very well-ordered, organized, and quite sterile. It is quite amusing to note the contrast between this an "actual" fried rice. When I made it with my Taiwanese friend a week later, we fried the onions first, and then added the other ingredients essentially all together.  I think this methods gives the dish more "soul". I'm not really sure  how to explain this.