It's hard to believe I posted my very first recipe on this blog ten years ago today. That makes me feel pretty old. At the time, I was one semester into graduate school, living by myself, and figuring out cooking as I went along. I look at some of those early recipes and laugh about how wordy they were despite the simplicity of the dishes. I thought the best way to celebrate this anniversary would be to "upgrade" that first post. A lot has changed since then, but plenty has stayed the same: look carefully and you'll see both the original wok and spatula still in service. After all these years, fried rice remains a staple weeknight dinner and I'm still as much of a fan as I was then.
Fundamentally, I stand by the original recipe even though I probably never made it like that again. It was quite gratifying to learn (many years ago) that my future in-laws started making fried rice after reading that post. Instead of making the pork, they would get pork from a Chinese takeout to put in it. Although it amuses me to this day, I don't exactly disagree with the approach. To tell the truth, I rarely cook meat specifically for fried rice. Usually, I use a few pieces of lap cheong sausages or char siu from the freezer. So, let's consider this one a special occasion fried rice, fit for a ten-year blog anniversary. I switched from pork loin to the ever-versatile pork shoulder and applied the same marinade from my more recent beef chow fun recipe. These days, I rarely stir fry meat without a marinade.
In recent years, I always include some kind of vegetable in fried rice. Napa is my most commonly used choice, but I happened to have some Shanghai bok choy on hand this time. Another change from the 2012 recipe is how I cook the eggs, a technique I learned from a Kenji video. You can save a little time by pushing the rice over and cooking the eggs in the other half of the pan. I continue to serve with Worcestershire sauce, but also enjoy some Lao Gan Ma chili crisp to spice things up.
