FOOD NEWS
The Single Ingredient You Absolutely Need For Take-Out Style Fried Rice
By Allison Lindsey
If your homemade fried rice doesn't quite stack up to your local Chinese eatery, the solution for restaurant-quality fried rice is to add mirin.
Mirin adds a nuanced sweetness to fried rice, which helps balance the savory, umami, and salty elements of the dish for a richer, more complex, and well-rounded flavor profile.
Stir-frying the rice with mirin causes the sugars in the wine to caramelize, creating a golden-brown color that mimics the appearance of professionally prepared fried rice.
When making fried rice, balance the mirin with other ingredients, like soy sauce for saltiness, sesame oil for nuttiness, and veggies and proteins for flavor and textural variety.
Mirin is made from rice, distilled alcohol, and koji mold, which ferments the starches into sugars. Like other cooking wines, mirin contains up to 14% alcohol that gets cooked off.
There are three varieties to look for — hon mirin, aji mirin, and mirin fu. Hon mirin is the purest form and the highest quality since it's made without additives or preservatives.
Aji mirin is one of the most widely available varieties and is made with added sweeteners, while mirin fu is the most processed mirin variety and contains less than 1% alcohol.