Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice (老干妈炒饭)

A specific Guizhou variant of an idea that you can find throughout China

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Lao Gan Ma fried rice is, of course, a pretty obvious idea. As befitting something as general as ‘fried rice’ (and as a product as ubiquitous as Lao Gan Ma), a quick search on Xiachufang - the Chinese AllRecipes - will yield you a… pretty hefty quantity of recipes. I mean, it’s an idea that’s so obvious that you can even find English language ‘Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice’ recipes… hell, you might even have your own version that you already whip up.

The other day though, we were traveling in the town of Xingyi in Southwest Guizhou – a city not too far away from Lao Gan Ma’s birthplace outside of Guiyang. Nice, perhaps surprisingly walkable town settled amidst some pretty stunning karst formations. I was recovering from the flu, checked our list of saved restaurants to find something as close a walk to the hotel as possible, and settled on a restaurant called “米厂路吕记汤圆”. Wasn’t really feeling their savory Tangyuan, so ordered their Lao Gan Ma fried rice on whim. That plus a nice side soup exactly hit the spot.

Left, Xingyi; Right, Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice from Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice from 米厂路吕记汤圆

Their version of Lao Gan Ma fried rice was good – great, even (well, as great as something as common as fried rice can be). In a lot of ways, theirs was a sort of simplification of the ever-popular Guizhou Guailu ‘Freestyle’ Fried Rice (怪噜炒饭). They fried in a base of lard… and in addition to the Lao Gan Ma also added in some smoked Chinese bacon, fried napa cabbage, and beans. So we figured… as we’re ramping up for a couple of more intense videos, why not try to recreate it here real quick for y’all?

Lao Gan Ma Fried Rice

Assuming a bottle of Lao Gan Ma handy, the components of this fried rice was so tantalizingly close to being western-supermarket-friendly, that I figured maybe we could go the whole way and develop this recipe with some substitutions in mind. As such, in place of the lard and Chinese bacon, below we’re going to be using bacon (like, American-style streaky bacon) and rendering out the grease to use as the frying oil. If you happen to have lard and smoked Chinese bacon on hand and want to keep things a little more Guizhou-style, you could obviously use that too.

Besides that, a couple sourcing notes for those without an Asian supermarket handy:

• We’ll be using Shaoxing wine in this recipe. If you don’t have a bottle around, you can sub it with a cheap brandy (our recommended sub), a dry sherry (everyone else’s recommended sub), or maybe even a cheap bourbon (I just think the flavors would work here). You could also use sake, mijiu rice wine, or just skip it.

• I believe Napa cabbage is western supermarket available these days, but you could use cabbage-cabbage as well.

• We’ll be using a red, fragrant chili powder in this recipe: i.e. something like qinjiao (秦椒), Gochugaru, or Kashmiri chili powder. Fair warning that the restaurant didn’t use it, it was just our own little personal addition… so you could skip it if you like. You could also use a combination of Paprika and Cayenne Pepper if that’s easier – I might go with something like 1.5 tsp of Paprika and 0.5 tsp Cayenne Pepper to replace the chili powder used below.

• Note that when it comes to Lao Gan Ma, we’ll be using this bottle: Lao Gan Ma Black Bean Chili Sauce (a.k.a. Chili Oil with Fermented Soybeans). I know Lao Gan Ma is getting increasingly western-supermarket-available these days – like, even the WalMart in my parent’s hometown has one – but it seems the most commonly-stocked sort is the Spicy Chili Crisp. So while the above Lao Gan Ma is the OG Lao Gan Ma in China, depending where you live you might need to purchase it online.

Ingredients

• Jasmine rice (泰国香米/粘米), 225g

• Napa Cabbage (白菜/娃娃菜), 40g

• Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), ~1/2 tbsp. To be swirled in when frying the cabbage.

• Bacon, 3 strips

• Optional, to fry the bacon:

  Water, ~3 tbsp

  Oil, ~1/2 tbsp

• Aromatics:

  Garlic, 1 large clove, minced.

  Ginger, ~1/2 cm, minced.

  Scallion, ~1. White and green part separated. White minced, greens sliced.

• Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), ~1/2 tbsp. To be swirled in after frying the aromatics.

• Red, fragrant chili powder, 2 tsp. See note above.

• Lao Gan Ma Chili Oil with Black Bean (老干妈风味豆豉油辣椒), 2 tbsp

• Soy sauce (生抽), 1 tbsp

• Canned beans, 100g. Dealer’s choice. Kidney beans would be nice.

• Seasoning:

  Salt, ¼ tsp

  Sugar, ½ tsp

  MSG (味精), ¼ tsp

  White pepper powder (白胡椒粉), ¼ tsp

Process

Note: we’ll be using the steaming method to prepare our rice for stir-frying. Whenever we call for this method it tends to be a little controversial, as it contradicts some of the prevailing internet wisdom on prepping rice for fried rice. From /r/cooking to Uncle Roger, everyone tends to insist that you should use day-old-rice for fried rice.

Of course, if you happen to have some day-old-rice laying around, definitely feel free to use that method. Use the technique that you’re comfortable with! But the below method is a legit restaurant technique to prepare rice for fried rice in southwest China (albeit slightly adapted to a home kitchen), and is definitely the best way to get a great fried rice texture same-day.

To steam the rice:

Rinse the rice 2-3 times. Add to a pot of boiling water, cooking it like it’s pasta. Boil for 3.5 minutes, then pour into a strainer. Make a little hole in the center with a chopstick for the rice to steam evenly.

Place the strainer over a pot of bubbling water. Cover, roughly ‘sealing’ the lid with a couple damp rags (alternatively, you could wrap the top of the strainer with aluminum foil). Steam for 15 minutes.

Remove and toss on a plate.

(you can do a lot of the prep work below while the rice is steaming)

To make the fried rice:

Mince the garlic, ginger, and scallion whites. Slice the scallion green. Cut the bacon into ~1 cm strips. Cut the napa into similar ~1 cm strips.

To a wok, first longyau: get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, and swirl in ~1 tbsp oil. Swap the flame back to high, and fry the napa cabbage for ~30 seconds, or until it’s just beginning to char. Swirl in the 1/2 tbsp Shaoxing wine, give a quick mix, then remove.

Next, fry the bacon. The way I like to do this is first add the bacon with that 3 tbsp water over a high flame. Boil rapidly until the water reduces away, then swap the flame to medium and add in that drizzle (~1/2 tbsp) of oil. Fry for ~5 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp and much of its lard has rendered oil. Remove the bacon.

You should be looking at around ~3 tbsp of oil.

Over a medium-low flame toss in the minced aromatics. Fry those until they’re fragrant, about thirty seconds or so, then drizzle in the other half tablespoon of Shaoxing wine. Good mix, and once you’re sure that Shaoxing’s reduced away, also go in with two teaspoons of your red, fragrant chili powder. Give that a quick fry until it’s fragrant, about thirty seconds more, then go in with two tablespoons of your Lao Gan Ma. Quick mix, then up your flame to high and add in the steamed rice. Stir fry for about one minute, then swirl in a tablespoon of soy sauce. Mix, then add in your drained and rinsed beans. Mix, seasoning in. Add back in the cabbage and the bacon. Heat off, another good mix, then mix the scallion greens.

A Side Soup

To be completely frank, for a while I didn’t used to like spicy fried rice all that much - like, I love spicy food and all, but my brain really wanted my main starch to be… plain. I mean, if you want to make a Hot Chicken Sandwich, you don’t crack that nut by making the bread spicy, right?

But as I ate more around the Guizhou and Hunan provinces, I started to appreciate spicy fried rices a bit more… albeit on one condition: having something a bit more plain and soupy to go alongside it. Just a personal preference.

So… from the above recipe, we’ve still got almost an entire head of napa cabbage left. So I figured that we could also whip up a quick side soup alongside it to potentially compete the meal? Just in case you’ve got similar tastes as me, I guess. The above fried rice and the below soup make for a great two person meal, in my opinion.

Ingredients

• Napa cabbage (白菜/娃娃菜), 350g. Cut into ~1.5 inch slices

• Garlic, 5 whole cloves

• Century egg, 1. Cut into rough chunks

• Ginger, ~1/2 inch. Smashed.

• Scallion, 1. White and green part separated. White minced, greens sliced.

• Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tbsp

• Hot, boiled water from the kettle; 1 cup

• Seasoning:

  Salt, 1/4 tsp

  Sugar, 1/2 tsp

  MSG (味精), 1/8 tsp

  White pepper powder (白胡椒粉), 1/4 tsp

Process

First, longyau: get your wok piping hot, shut off the heat, add in the oil - here, about one tablespoon - and give it a swirl to get a nice non-stick surface. Add in the garlic, and over a medium-low flame, fry until evenly golden brown, ~5 minutes. Remove the garlic together with the oil it was fried in.

Add in another ~1/2 tbsp of oil, and swap the flame to high. Add in the chopped up century egg, fry until blistered, ~30 seconds. Add in the ginger and the scallion whites, and give a quick ~15 second fry until fragrant. Swirl over the wine, quick mix, then hit it with the hot water. Let it all come back up to a boil, then add in the napa. Boil for about two minutes. Add the seasoning, mix well. Add back the garlic and garlic frying oil.  Transfer to a serving plate, garnish with scallion greens.