Do you need to use day-old rice for fried rice?
Or is there a better method?
Somehow I’m incapable of ever making the right amount of rice. Usually I make way more than I need which works because it’s great for fried rice the next day. It seems to be pretty well known that using rice that was cooked the day before is important.
Why is that?
For the ultimate fried rice, we’re looking for dry rice (not stale rice). We need some of the moisture to evaporate, but not all of it. It’s important that the surface be dry so that it fries well.
There are 2 ways to achieve this:
Storing the rice in the fridge from the day before
Directing a fan on freshly cooked rice for about an hour. This will be sufficient in drying out the rice without making it stale and it also means you don’t have to prepare a day ahead.
In J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s tests, method #2 actually achieved better results than the more commonly practiced 1st method.
For more information than you’ve ever wanted on fried rice, check out J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s detailed experiments on fried rice.