Wh do so many Asian recipes explicitly call for leftover rice?

Question

I’ve recently been trying to put some new meals in my repertoire and when browsing for new ideas I’ve noticed that many recipes call for day old leftover rice instead of fresh one. Egg fried rice for example. Some people even seem to insist that it doesn’t work with fresh rice. Why is that?

In: 362

Answer 1

Short grain rice is sticky when you cook it fresh. As it cools the individual grains dry out a bit and kind of separate themselves. You know how if you leave takeout rice in the fridge for a day it gets a little crunchy? That’s what you want for fried rice or else it’ll just be a pile of mush.