Someone didn't like me posting such "awful" fried rice last week. So I'm reflecting on what they said and...

Welcome aboard! We have plenty of carbs for everyone!

*Quality may vary.

I honestly didn't dispute the score, but things definitely got wildly personal last time. I suppose my response to it didn't help. I'm used to people using personal attacks to get what they want, so I've hardened myself over such interactions over time: if you do that irl I'm going to go mongoose on ya. :P

But definitely gotta taste the food to be sure. But who knows, maybe everything I make is made of clay or something.

Exactly! Maybe a bit of a quick toss but that's it!

While this is true, you can do a pretty good job at replicating it on a regular stovetop. Years ago, I watched a YouTube video of a French guy who tested a bunch of methods for recreating cooking fried rice with a jet engine but on a home stove.

He found that the best method was the following:

• Use a thick cast iron pan on medium heat to cook your eggs.
• Add your rice then add your veggies.
• Keep mixing and cook until veggies reach desired doneness.
• Then to finish, max out the heat and move all your rice to the center of the pan exposing the edges all around.
• Pour your soy sauce around the edges so it instantly starts boiling and evaporating most of the water.
• Mix everything together for a few minutes then done.

I've been doing this method for years and it works amazingly well. Before using this method, I found my fried rice would often come out mushy or wet. It's the closest I've ever come to recreating restaurant fried rice. Id say it's about 90% of the way there and my fried rice is probably my favorite dish I make now.

Is it authentic is for smooth brains. Is it delicious is far more important.

It's a bit of a problem. But then again, apartment living takes its toll.

The biggest problem with the glass stovetop is actually continuous heat. I usually combat it with a carbon steel wok and preheating aggressively and moving it off the heat when needed. But that wok is smaller, so for stuff based on volume I'm back to this non stick again.

Butane wok burners are a thing and pretty cheap!

It's actually not really a "fried rice", since it's supposed to be steaming rice with veg + sausage.

But then people realized the baby bok choy turns yellow if you do that, hence an extra toss in the wok. It's definitely closer to steamed rice though.

I get it. One controversial rule that I do follow is "no msg". It's one of the few things that might drive people crazy. Especially Uncle Roger.

Back in the early 2000s there was a government (not sure if regional or national) campaign in China that pushed for reducing MSG consumption based on health research at the time. While I'm not sure how many households actually listened, ours did - no MSG in anything homemade + avoid eating out whenever possible.

These days, it seems like the MSG health debate has shifted in the opposite direction. I still avoid it whenever possible cause (1) a lot of times people add MSG to sub for ingredients that add umami and it's easier to add the actual stuff (dried scallops, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, sugar, etc) and (2) suppose someone says high fructose corn syrup is safe to eat in large quantities tomorrow, are you willing to make the switch? I'm pretty sure most people would still be hesitant.

So things would probably taste better with MSG, but I just prefer to personally avoid it. That being said, if guests would prefer to add it, they are free to do so themselves.

i'd already been really sick of that "everyone's so creative" cooking content for a while, because it's mostly just bullying, but uncle roger put me off him for good when he ballbusted a 12 year old for using a bench scraper. you know, the extremely common tool that every youtube cook uses in every single video.

Fuyoo!

I'm gonna call it this now, thanks.

Enjoying its best life in a Taiwanese pastry!

It's only Fried Rice if it's made by Fry from Futurama. Otherwise it's just rice.

I’m Asian and don’t think anything special about fried rice lol. It’s just basic, like dressing up your ramen. Make-it-how-you-like-it with whatever you have in the fridge type of food.

There’s just one key you must know: use old rice, avoid using fresh. It’s easier to fry that way. Similar to using old bread for croutons or french toast

Add an egg if you want that nice yellow color.

Nice eye! I'm not sure how you managed to guess the exact type of sausage but you're right.

Back home, we used this Harbin sausage (哈尔滨红肠) that was garlicky and supposedly introduced from Russia back in the day. Since the US doesn't allow meat imports, this was the closest thing in terms of taste and texture I can find. I'm assuming the Chinese version might have descended from Polish cuisine from a land route as well.

Outside of the rice discussion: I think it's important to post "something" if you care about the health of the platform itself. Rather than complaining about the lack of activity outside of tech and gaming, it's more effective to post something yourself. My total number of posts on Reddit since 2018 is 1, but I'm trying to keep myself to at least one post per week here just for the sake of it.

As for people being hostile on the Internet, sure that's expected, but that doesn't mean I can't be bored out of my mind to respond. I just have a grudge against people who frame everything as "constructive criticism" that aren't being constructive at all. Especially if they themselves aren't willing to step their foot in the game either.

Why did you write this?

Petty? Yes definitely. But your description is an extremely reductionist take.

I'm focusing on making one post per week to contribute some degree of engagement on Lemmy. Can't complain about the platform dying if you don't put in some effort yourself.

That being said, immediately resorting to personal attacks over what is perceived as "correct technique" not only doesn't help with encouraging engagement on Lemmy, it also doesn't make them "right" -- it just makes them look like an a-hole. Doubly so if the whole thing involves something as subjective as taste in food. While I don't dispute that my technique is perfect in the original post (I'm making these for myself to eat, not social media posting. So the effort spent on each dish is limited), I do think some criticism crosses the line as to not being constructive.

In the case of last week's post, I started off with saying there is no sauce, unlike the case of American Chinese food, which seems to add sauce for no reason. What even is "sauce" anyways? Outside of Cantonese style cooking, I don't expect any fried rice to come with "sauce". Especially from a region that tends towards using salt, pepper, and sesame oil to naturally uplift the taste of raw ingredients. I don't need someone with a total of 3 comments telling me that they can do better if they wanted to post (but don't, for "reasons"), or belittling an entire region just because they needed to drive home that I'm a shit cook with an attitude problem that needs correcting. (I agree with the attitude problem, hence this post.) Who gave THEM the divine authority to correct everyone's attitudes?