Chinese Shrimp Fried Rice

The secret to this dish is it's simplicity; although most associated with Chinese cuisine, fried rice is now a favourite of many cuisines around the world, and is a great way of using leftover ingredients. The essential aspect of good fried rice is that the rice should be cold when it is added to the wok/frying pan. If you use freshly boiled rice, this will end up steaming instead of frying and you will be left with a soggy, lumpy fried rice. The rice should be cooked several hours in advance and then refrigerated, or ideally the night before. As I mentioned before, this is a perfect opportunity to use up any rice that you have over from the previous day.

As for the type of rice, I would recommend long grain rice. You want your rice to be easy to separate into individual grains. Starchy shorter grain rices have a tendency to clump together, and are more difficult to separate.

Chicken Chow Mein - Takeaway Style

A staple of Chinese restaurants and takeaways, chow mein is very simply fried noodles together with meat and vegetables. It doesn't have to be chicken either, you can easily replace it with beef, or pork, or shrimps, or do a combination of all of them - this is usually known the "house special" chow mein! The thing about take away chow mein though is that often you find that at the bottom of the metal tray is a large pool of oil and grease. Or maybe you don't notice as you have bought the takeaway after a night on the town, and are a little worse for wear! But it is possible to have chicken chow mein without the grease overload.