Schezwan Fried Rice
Schezwan Fried Rice recipe with easy instructions to make your own schezwan sauce for rice. This spicy Schezwan Fried Rice is a breeze to whip up in just 20 minutes with the best homemade sweet, sour and hot sauce. Made with everyday ingredients, it is insanely flavorful & delicious!! This recipe is vegetarian, but you can easily add the protein of your choice. Easily customize it to your taste and add the choice of veggies or even egg.
About Schezwan Fried Rice
Schezwan Fried Rice is a popular fried rice variety from the Indo Chinese Cuisine. It is quite popular & is the most ordered in Indo-Chinese restaurants. Unlike the regular fried rice, Schezwan Fried Rice is hot & spicy with bursting flavors of ginger, garlic, soya sauce & red chilli paste.
This is an easy recipe to make better than restaurant quality schezwan fried rice. It is so much flavorful, delicious and super simple to make with pantry staples. Another similar dish is this Schezwan Noodles.
Schezwan rice is made by frying rice along with schezwan sauce which is a unique blend of sauces cooked together. In this post I have also shown how to make the sauce from scratch & use the same for your schezwan fried rice.
Usually bottled Schezwan sauce from the stores contain additives & preservatives. So that keeps me away from using them most times. This homemade sauce is much flavorful & superior in taste that the ready made one. So do try the simple sauce I have shown here.
The Schezwan fried rice served in most restaurants in India do not have Sichuan peppers since it is already included in the store bought sauce they use.
The unique aroma actually comes from the sichuan peppers. However if you do not have then just skip them. Your dish will still turn out amazing.
To make schezwan sauce, red chilles are soaked in warm water and then blended to make red chilli paste. But if you do not have red chilies or do not want to blend them, then just use red chilli powder the same way I have used in this post.
How to Make Schezwan Fried Rice
Preparation
You can cook rice in whatever way you like. It has to be grainy and not mushy. Here I have shown how I do.
1. Rinse and soak 1½ cups basmati rice for 20 to 30 minutes. Bring about 10 cups water to a rolling boil in a large pot. When the water begins to boil, drain the water from the rice and add it to the water. Also add 1 teaspoon oil to the water. Cook rice on a medium high flame till al dente. It must be grainy, almost cooked and not mushy.
2. Drain the rice immediately to a colander. To avoid drying, cover and keep the rice.
3. Soak about 8 to 10 deseeded red chilies in little warm water for 15 minutes. Later make a fine paste in a blender jar along with little water. I like to use red chili powder just to skip the lengthy process of soaking and blending.
To make that, add good quality Kashmiri red chili powder to a small bowl. Then pour very little water. Stir and make a fine paste.
Make Schezwan Sauce for Rice
4. Pour 1½ tablespoons oil and heat it. Fry ½ tablespoon ginger and 1 tablespoon garlic until it turns aromatic.
5. Fry until the onions turn golden. If using celery add 2 tbsps chopped celery. I do not use it. Saute for 2 to 3 mins.
6. Next stir in 1½ tablespoon soya sauce, 1 tablespoon red chilli paste, 1 tablespoon ketchup (optional), ½ tablespoon sugar, vinegar and ½ teaspoon salt. To make red chilli paste, stir together ¾ to 1 tbsp red chilli powder with 3 tablespoons water.
7. Add ¾ to 1 teaspoon crushed Sichuan pepper or half teaspoon crushed black pepper. Please note you have to crush the Sichuan peppers well. If using them in ground form, cut down to half.
8. Saute furthermore till the sauce thickens.
9. Pour water and stir again. Cooking further brings out the flavor of onions and pepper.
10. Cook until it thickens. Set the sauce aside until needed. To the same pan, add 1½ tablespoon more oil and proceed to the next step.
Make Schezwan Fried Rice
11. Regulate the flame to high. Pour 1.5 tablespoons oil. When the oil turns hot, add spring onion whites, carrots, french & beans. Stir fry chopped veggies until half cooked yet crunchy.
12. Add capsicum. Stir and fry until they are half done but not soft.
13. Add the spring onion greens and Schezwan sauce.
14. Add cooled rice. I added a bit of oil at this stage. Gently mix to coat the rice with sauce.
15. Stir fry further for 2 minutes. If making for later use or for packing in lunch box, then just mix and do not fry longer. Rice becomes harder. Taste test and add more salt and sauce if needed.