The best part about Engrish is not simply that it exists, but it destroys the English language in ways that you’d never think of:
“Ustensils” you can almost convince yourself, “Well, that’s just a typo.” I’m not exactly sure how one transmutes “with” into “wight”, a dreadfully uncommon word in English.
Last night, I returned to Hong Kong Food Market to purchase an electric rice cooker. The cashier there was friendly and helpful, although a tad hard to understand since his English was middling. They had several brands, and he recommended the “Tiger” brand as the best. I requested the 10 cup version, and after he put the box on the table, I saw the price tag of $105. “No, this is too expensive,” I laughed, so he offered the 8 cup version which was “only” $99. (Note: It had better be one heck of a rice cooker for me to be paying triple digits for one.) Eventually, I ended up getting a $30 brand, which is closer to what I’d envisioned on spending. We will see how long it lasts before it explodes.
In any case, I couldn’t get the sign hanging by the rice cookers out of my head: “3 days to return all eleclric merchandies”.
Mmmmkay never ever listen to the staff when buying electric rice cookers. Tatung is all you need. $30 is about right.
Heh heh…I have an engrish story that I will post sometime. it may be offensive so I hafta word it right.
why would you ever need a 10 cup rice cooker unless you plan on making a ton of fried rice for a very large gathering?
If anyone knows how to make fried rice quickly and easily like they taste in chinese food resturaunts(without peas, egg etc. just the rice) I would love to know. My few attempts have not turned out well and it is one of my favorite 2 foods I think. One time either the directions were wrong or I didn’t get it correctly and waited forever for some rice to absorb the oil I was trying to boil it in instead of water. so eventually i put cooked rice in all the oil, and it was glop city, a complete mess.
Well…I kinda feel obligated to answer because 1) I’m a girl and 2) I’m chinese. Be forewarned, my cooking is fair to middling at best and not as good as Donnie’s.
The easiest way to make fried rice is to first get an order of white (steamed) rice from a Chinese restaurant. The rice needs to be moderately sticky, not flaky. You can make your own rice but you’d have to get a rice cooker. You CANNOT make good fried rice with instant rice from a box.
Now take a wok or pan and heat some oil. It depends on how greasy you like your rice to be, I like GREEEEASY, so I use about 3 tablespoons per cup of cooked rice. If you like yours just regular, use 2 tablespoons.
Ok so once the oil gets hot, dump the rice in. It should sizzle when you do this. The rice can be hot or cold, and you can add it all at once or little by little, just coat it in the hot oil evenly. Now use a spatula and just mess the rice around, chopping up the chunks until all heated through. It should be pretty oily.
Once heated through, add just a dash of soy sauce to color and flavor the rice. Soy sauce is VERY important, use either a Japanese brand or Kimlan. A little goes a LONG way so EASY ON THE SOY SAUCE. You’re screwed if you add too much. I say 1 tablespoon per cup of cooked rice. Now you have basic fried rice.
I like adding sesame oil after removing the rice from heat – 1 teaspoon per cup of rice works well. I also like adding chopped garlic to the oil right before I add the rice. Good luck! Let me know how it goes!
@Annie: Is offensiveness something your readership would be worried about?
@Allen: Laziness. I’d cook a ton of rice on Sunday, and use it throughout the week.
@l3rucewayne: Not that I’ve tried to make fried rice more than a couple times, and it doesn’t come out restaurant-style, but…all I do is cook white rice as normal, a bit light on the water. Then I throw it into a wok, pour on some soy sauce, and stir-fry it. But I don’t think that’s really a “correct” recipe.
[EDIT: Use Annie’s recipe; it sounds like she knows what she’s doing here :D]
I don’t worry about being offensive so much as I just don’t want to put certain stuff on my blog. You’ll see when I find a way to retell the events.
It sounds like I should get the full story via IM…if you’re willing. 😉
Oh yea, keep in mind there are two types of soy sauce.
One is mainly for coloring and one is just damn salty for taste.
annie and allen: thank you! I will definitely use this next time I feel inclined to make fried rice. probably will be very soon like within 2 weeks now that I have an easy to understand and follow recipe.
Donnie: I agree with the edit, look forward to a very out of place comment on fried rice in the near future on whatever your most recent topic is at the time.