I don’t actually imagine in fried rice recipes. To me, fried rice is supposed to be an empty canvas crammed with an unorthodox hodgepodge of no matter bizarre leftovers will be discovered within the fridge or pantry. Half a cabbage? Positive! An particularly ripe jar of kimchi? Wonderful! A can of tuna? Why not!
However after I noticed the fried rice recipe on the aspect of a Hondashi immediate bonito soup inventory field, I used to be intrigued. For starters, I’ve solely ever used Hondashi for its precise acknowledged goal: making bonito soup inventory, for miso soups or soba dipping sauce. It by no means occurred to me that the MSG-laced powder may truly work in dry functions (regardless that I exploit hen bouillon and MSG on a regular basis in my typical fried rice). Maybe the small pebble shapes of the dashi powder, which don’t essentially appear to be they’ll dissolve with out liquid, is why I by no means thought of seasoning my dryer dishes with it.
I additionally was curious how the fried rice would end up, seeing that the directions had been three brief sentences that learn as follows:
Stir fry 6 shrimps, 1 egg, 14oz of rice in 1 tbsp of sesame oil. Add 2 tsp of Hondashi (trademark) with 1 tsp of soy sauce. Prime with inexperienced onions and serve.
There’s no point out of salt or pepper or garlic, three issues I embody in all my fried rice. There’s no stir-fried onions. You don’t even season the shrimp earlier than you add them! There was no means this might work, I concluded. However the energy of MSG was out to show me unsuitable.
To start out, utilizing toasted sesame oil relatively than a impartial cooking oil imparts taste to the dish from the start. Though the shrimp weren’t seasoned, they nonetheless toasted within the oil, including their very own briny and candy notes. I cracked open an egg and scrambled it earlier than including the rice and folding every little thing collectively. At first, it regarded subpar and bland. To me, the addition of a single teaspoon of soy sauce and two teaspoons of the dry bonito powder didn’t look like it could be sufficient to totally taste the dish.
However as I added the soy sauce and Hondashi, the rice took on shade and really started to look… appetizing. And after I tasted it, lo and behold: salt! The savory and barely smoky qualities of the powdered bonito inventory infiltrated each crevice of the fried rice and the soy sauce added an extra layer of umami, in addition to some a lot wanted shade.
The fried rice is garnished with recent inexperienced onions, as all good fried rice needs to be, and I’m shocked to say that this very simple Hondashi recipe works.
Are there issues I might change? Completely. I’d included garlic, for starters, and freshly floor black pepper. I’d end the dish with a squeeze of lemon to freshen it up and add a puckeriness to the shrimp. I’d additionally season the shrimp, even with one thing so simple as a shake of salt and pepper, simply to construct extra taste from the get-go.
Given how brief the recipe is, I additionally suppose it locations an expectation on the individual following it to really have some cooking chops — it’s as much as you to not overcook the shrimp or mash the moist eggs with dried rice, lest you wind up with clumpy fried rice. There’s no actual timing to contemplate, nor any point out of how scorching your pan needs to be. Nonetheless, I feel the recipe is straightforward sufficient to handle that even newbie cooks can determine it out.
Though I haven’t modified my thoughts about whether or not we needs to be following fried rice recipes to a tee within the first place, what has modified is that now after I make fried rice, I’m extra prone to embody Hondashi as an additional taste booster.
