Why doesn’t Chapter 491 count?

Su Chen's eyes fell on the foam boxes containing food.

All the system requires is some home-cooked food, which is not too much trouble.

Just take a few vegetables from the skewers they have skewered in advance and stir-fry them to make the meal.

Anyway, the task description doesn't specify the specific form, so it should be fine to just fool around.

Thinking about it, Su Chen opened the lid of the largest white foam box to look at the other ingredients.

Then a gust of cold air hit me in the face.

The box was neatly stacked with various grilled skewers, green and red peppers, enoki mushrooms, and potato chips, each one arranged in its own category. Several ice packs lined the bottom of the box, keeping everything fresh.

"Wow, you guys are quite well prepared." Su Chen raised his eyebrows, "This amount is enough for a few more people."

Upon hearing this, the onlookers scratched their heads and laughed embarrassedly.

Are you kidding? We finally managed to get Boss Su to do the cooking, how could we be careless with the ingredients?

Su Chen picked up a bunch of green peppers and mushrooms and fiddled with them gently with his fingertips.

These vegetables have been pierced and fixed with bamboo sticks for too long, and some moisture has been lost. If they are taken apart and fried directly, the taste may be compromised.

Forget it, just make do with it.

"Boss Su, I'll light the fire. You can see if there's anything missing and ask them to go buy some."

As Xiao Yao spoke, he picked up a lighter and started to light the fire.

Su Chen looked at the seasoning packets on the table: garlic sauce, cumin powder, chili powder...

It’s more complete than all the seasonings in his home.

"All right, all right... You can go and rest for a while. I'll call you when you're almost well."

Su Chen waved his hand and first prepared a sauce to be used for grilling meat later.

Then, just as he was about to start unskewing the ingredients for cooking, he suddenly saw a pot of freshly steamed rice next to him.

By the way, how can fried rice not be considered a home-cooked dish?

"Do you want egg fried rice?"

Xiao Yao's hands were stunned for a moment as he was making the fire. He looked at the rice cooker and nodded.

"Eat! Eat, eat, eat! Boss Su, please feel free to do whatever you want. We welcome everyone..."

As he spoke, he picked up a small fan and pointed it at the charcoal in the grill.

The fire was fanned by the wind, and the surface of the charcoal in the oven glowed red.

You can tell at first glance that he is an old hand and doesn't need any help at all.

Su Chen poured out the rice in the pot and estimated that there were about four or five bowls. With the barbecue, it should be enough.

There is a huge difference between the upper and lower limits of egg fried rice.

Compared with Yangzhou fried rice, the main ingredients are eggs and rice, but the other side dishes of Yangzhou fried rice are extremely rich.

Ham, green beans, shrimp, sea cucumber, shiitake mushroom, diced bamboo shoots, etc.

Several of these ingredients are missing from the fried rice that Su Chen is going to make today.

Some people say that this simple folk fried rice is a simplification of the delicate Yangzhou fried rice.

But as far as Su Chen knew, it was just the opposite.

Yangzhou fried rice is actually ordinary egg fried rice that originated from the folk.

Ancient chefs added various ingredients and even broth to the egg fried rice, and finally improved the ordinary egg fried rice into Yangzhou fried rice.

Today we are going to make egg fried rice. Although the ingredients are much simpler than Yangzhou fried rice, it is just as difficult to make.

The main ingredients are only eggs and rice. This extremely simple combination shows the best effort.

Su Chen took out 5 eggs, cracked them on the chopping board, and beat them into a bowl.

The eggs were put into the bowl, and Su Chen inserted his chopsticks into the bowl to stir the eggs.

The reason for inserting it directly into the bowl is to reduce bubbles in the egg liquid.

Some dishes require the eggs to be loose and porous, such as scrambled eggs with tomatoes, which requires inserting chopsticks diagonally into the bowl to stir.

In this way, a large amount of air can be beaten into the egg liquid while beating the eggs, increasing the bubbles in the egg liquid.

There are enough bubbles so that the egg liquid will become loose and porous when it encounters hot oil and solidifies.

The eggs in egg fried rice need to have a firmer texture.

Therefore, it is required that not too much air can enter the egg liquid during the stirring process, and the vertical stirring method is suitable.

Add a little pepper to the egg liquid to remove the fishy smell, add a little salt to season, and continue stirring.

After stirring, Su Chen put the egg liquid aside and chopped the green onions and put them into a bowl.

At this point, the preparations are complete.

Eggs, rice, that's all.

It is so simple that it is extremely rare to see it on street stalls or in ordinary households.

Even ordinary people who have just learned to cook will find ways to make egg fried rice more rich when making it at home, such as adding a sausage, or half a cabbage, a handful of bean sprouts, etc.

Some restaurants even try to coat every grain of rice evenly with egg liquid, upgrading the egg fried rice to "golden fried rice".

Golden fried rice not only has a unique taste, but also has a shocking visual effect. Especially for those who have never cooked before, they will find it magical when they see it for the first time.

What Su Chen made today was the most plain and simple egg fried rice. Even the side dish only had chopped green onions.

The rice has been cooked for a while. It has been placed in a steamer with heat preservation function and is still steaming.

Some people say that fried rice must be made with leftover rice.

There is some truth to this statement, but it is by no means an iron rule that cannot be broken.

For most restaurants and stalls, it is not realistic to always have the right amount of leftover rice.

The reason for this statement is that using overnight rice can indeed reduce the difficulty of making fried rice.

The main component of rice is starch. During the steaming process, the starch encounters high temperature and will gelatinize after absorbing water.

After starch is gelatinized, its physical properties change and its viscosity increases.

This is also why freshly steamed rice becomes sticky.

Among the four major cuisines, many dishes use the method of thickening, and this method makes use of the gelatinization properties of starch.

The stickiness of the gelatinized starch locks the sauce onto the dish.

The starch in the gelatinized state is more viscous and contains more water. Therefore, when frying rice with hot rice, the rice will easily stick together. Not only will such rice not be easy to absorb the flavor during the frying process, but it will also have a poor taste.

After being placed, the gelatinized starch will enter a "regeneration" state.

The gelatinized state of starch will not be maintained permanently. As the temperature drops, the starch will slowly recover. After recovery, the moisture content in the rice will decrease and the stickiness of the rice will also decrease.

This is also why many dishes that use thickening techniques need to be eaten while hot. After these dishes cool down, the originally gelatinized starch regenerates and the viscosity decreases, and the thickening sauce cannot hang on the main ingredients, and the sauce will lose its starchiness.

Because of this characteristic of starch, overnight rice with lower viscosity is easier to achieve a loose texture and is easier to absorb flavor.

In fact, this can be achieved as long as the rice is cooled, even if it is not left overnight.

(End of this chapter)