Welcome to Taiji's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make chahan or an English fried rice.
This is actually more Chinese food but we eat this quite often in Japan and often in a ramen
restaurant in combination with ramen. It's pretty common to have this as a side dish for ramen and
most ramen restaurants have what's called hanchan which means half chahan and it's a great combination
to eat with ramen. I also make this quite often because it's quite easy and it takes no more than
like 10-15 minutes and it doesn't require that many different ingredients and I can just make
it up with whatever I have. It's also pretty balanced because you have the rice for the carbo,
eggs and meat for the protein and different vegetables. Today I'm going to show you a very
standard version with chicken meat but you can also make this with different kind of meat like
bacon, ham or sausage but of course if you're a vegetarian you can take away the meat and you
have a vegetarian fried rice. Then let's get started. Here are the ingredients for chicken
chahan or chicken fried rice. So I have here pre-cooked rice and it's cold. It's better to
use cold rice rather than freshly cooked warm rice because if you have a warm rice it gets a
little bit sticky especially if you have a Japanese short grain rice. You can of course also use
jasmine rice or basmati rice if that's what you have at home. Then I have egg. Here I have chicken
thigh meat. You can use of course other part of chicken or you can use pork or beef or if you have
bacon or ham in your fridge then you can of course use that as well. And I have one onion, two bundles
of scallion, salt, pepper, soy sauce. For the frying I have sesame oil. I like to use sesame oil because
it's got nice aroma to it but if you don't have this and you only have olive oil or other frying
oil you can of course use that. So let's cut up the onion. I have here a medium sized onion so I'm
going to use only half of it. The other half I'm going to use for something else. I'm going to
leave that part on and then I'm just going to make incision like this. I'm not going to cut it all the
way through just stopping here like this and then I'm going to cut it like this so that you have
about even size dices. And then you just have to throw this end part away. And then scallion I'm
going to first take the bottom off. I'm going to use this bottom part to fry in the beginning and
then top I'm going to put in at the end so it adds more to the aroma. So I'm going to cut this top
part off and then I'm going to slice these pretty thin like so. And this bottom part I'm going to
cut it a little bigger. This is a bit wider so I'm going to cut it through a little in the middle
like this. I'm going to cut like this kind of slices.
So the thing about onion or scallion when they get cooked thoroughly then it gives really nice
sweetness and gives good umami to the flavor. So that's why we're adding pretty a lot of scallion
and onion. And then lastly I'm going to cut off the chicken meat. I'm just going to make small pieces.
There's no really particular way to cut this.
So it's that. And then lastly we're going to beat the egg. So for chahan you don't have to beat it
so much that it's thoroughly even. Just like this much is enough. Okay let's start cooking. I'm going
to heat the frying pan to high and then here I'm going to put in some sesame oil. Then I'm just
going to wait a little bit till the frying pan gets heated. Once the frying pan is somewhat heated
I'm going to put in first the garlic. So once the garlic is browned a little bit I'm going to put in
the onion. I'm going to turn the heat to medium. And once the onions kind of half see through I'm
going to put in the bottom of the scallion. Once the scallion is kind of halfway cooked I'm going
to put in the chicken. Now that the chicken is like 80 cooked I'm going to take it away and put
another plate. Then I'm going to quickly wash the frying pan. And then I'm going to heat the
frying pan to high. Then here I'm going to put in again sesame oil or whatever frying oil you have.
You want to watch the frying pan really carefully. So you have a very small smoke. I don't know if
you can see it. A very slight smoke. And then at that moment I'm going to put in the eggs.
I could wait a little longer. Right in here where the egg is not cooked I'm going to put in the rice.
And I'm going to break in the rice like this. So you want to break out these clumps of rice.
And also these big piece of eggs. Once the rice is somewhat heated I'm going to put in the rest
of the ingredients. Here I'm going to season it with half a teaspoon of salt. And then also I'm
going to grind in some pepper. So like a half a teaspoon or a little less. And here I'm going to
put in the rest of the scallion. Here I'm also going to put in a teaspoon of soy sauce.
You hear this sizzling sound. Soy sauce gives a really good aroma when it's a little burnt.
So we're going to do that right here. Oh it smells really good. Okay this is finished. Let's put it
on a plate. I'm going to turn the heat off. So you can just put this on a regular plate but what I'm
going to do is I'm going to put in a small bowl like this. And then I'm going to cover on top of
like this. And then flip. I'm going to take this off. Okay this is finished. Let's eat.
This is looking really delicious. Let's eat. Itadakimasu. So eating chahan it's really typical
for us to eat with spoon or what's called denge. It's kind of like Chinese spoon. I don't think
anybody would eat chahan with chopsticks. Oh this is looking really good.
It's also a really great combination. The first comes in the punch of the roasted garlic. And
after that comes in the very subtle sweetness of the onion and the scallion. And then the
chicken gives a really juicy flavor to it. Oh it's really delicious.
And this is also perfect to match with ramen. A lot of ramen restaurants in Japan
serves also chahan. This is really good.
If you also like it spicy you can put in a little chili to it.
This is really good.
That was totally delicious. So as you saw making chahan is really easy. Preparation takes like no
more than 10 minutes and cooking itself takes about 5. Also no more than 10 minutes. So all
together like 15 to 20 minutes. I often make this for lunch when I don't want to cook like
really big meal. I make it up with whatever I have in the fridge. You can also be very creative
with this. You can also put in different vegetables. You can also put in like shrimp or any
other seafood you have or like bacon, sausage, whatever. Or if you're a vegetarian you can put
in just different vegetables or like tofu or whatever meat substitute you have. There's really
no limit on the variation of the chahan. If you like what you saw please subscribe and if you
have any other requests or what you want to see write that in the comments below. I'll be very
happy to hear it. I'll also be grateful if you could share with your friends who might have
interest in Japanese food. Then I look forward to see you in the next video. Bye!
