Rice – What ingredients can be used to make fried rice slightly sweet

rice

I regularly buy fried rice from my local takeaway and I would like to recreate something similar. It is slightly redish in color (that's most likely chilli, but might not be, as it's not too hot) and tastes sweet and sour. I'm wondering what kind of ingredients they might be using to achieve this type of flavor, as the rice I make at home usually tasted pretty one dimensionally salty from the soy sauce. Could they be using something like tamarind juice, that's often used in Pad Thai recipes? What else can give fried rice a similar flavor profile?

Best Answer

Often there's no secret sauce that restaurants use, but plain old bog-standard sugar. I know it's boring, but there you go. They also may be using bottled sweet and sour sauce, which is also boring, but readily available in many supermarkets.

All is not lost, however, as if you want some more authentic ingredients then there are plenty of options. In my kitchen (which isn't big enough to satisfy my capacity requirements for exotic ingredients otherwise this list would be bigger) I have several ingredients which impart sweetness to Asian dishes:

  • Palm sugar: more of a Thai than a Chinese ingredient, but I use it for many different cuisines. It imparts a slightly syrupy flavor. In the UK this can be found in any big grocery store in the Asian section.
  • Sweet soy syrup: Also can be found under the name Kecap Manis, this is an Indonesian ingredient. It is basically teriyaki concentrate, it's salty, very sweet, and has some spices in it. I use it in all sorts of Asian cooking (and I sometimes add it to gravy to darken and sweeten it), and it would be my choice for the dish you want to make. I would add it instead of soy sauce until I have the sweetness I'm looking for, then add regular soy to bring the saltiness to the right level. Adding a little bit of water helps loosen it up
  • Honey: not a purely Asian ingredient of course, but honey can be magic anyway. The floral notes may be just what you need

Now for the sour:

  • Tamarind: you mentioned tamarind in your post as something to sweeten, but tamarind is actually quite sour. I use paste at home, it lasts forever in the fridge
  • Lime or lemon juice: of the two I prefer lime juice when making Asian cooking sour. I can't quite say why.
  • Rice vinegar: This is a very commonly used souring agent, I use it most often in Chinese cooking, and it would be my choice for a fried rice dish

Also worth mentioning is Mirin - a reduced-alcohol Sake, usually with a bit of salt added. It's used widely in Japanese cuisine. I personally don't use it much, but it's worth having in the flavor arsenal.

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