Denny Wheeler wrote:
>
> Please? Oh, and assume I know *nothing* about making any form of
> fried rice. Because that's the case.
>
> I definitely need to know if I need long-grain rice for that. I
> basically have only Calrose and Jasmine rices on hand. And of course
> a rice cooker.

You can make fried rice with any kind of cooked, cold white rice. In
addition to what other postings have told you, the best advice I can
give is: turn up the heat! Use a heavy pan or wok that will handle
the highest heat you can generate. If your stove can do it you want to
reach heats beyond those that teflon can safely handle. So put your
heavy carbon steel wok or your anodized aluminum or your cast iron pan
on the largest burner on the highest heat. Get all your ingredients
chopped up and ready to go. Break up any clumps in your cold rice (use
your clean hands). The pan is still on the burner getting hotter and
hotter. When it is beginning to scare you, find your peanut oil, or
neutral vegetable oil (not olive). When the pan has begun to smoke,
pour a couple of TB of oil in and swirl it around. Put in your meat
and veggies in order of the time required to cook them, longest first.
Do not overload the pan! That will cause too much cooling, which must
be avoided. If necessary, cook the stuff in portions, removing it as
cooked to a bowl and adding the rest. When all the goodies except the
rice have been cooked, remove everything from the wok/pan. It's still
on high heat, you've never turned it down. Wait for the pan to come
back to its highest heat, add 2 TB more oil, then the rice. Fry it.
Don't steam it, don't "heat" it, this is why you need the heat.

Et cetera. Yes, I'm being tiresome about this point. But if you look
back through the archives of rfc you find post after post from people
saying their fried rice doesn't come out the way they want it to.
People post various flavoring speculations. The answer is HEAT. Can
you produce something edible, adequate, even pretty good without it?
Sure. But it's better this way. Raise your sights, and your heat.
-aem