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

Fried rice in general is meant to be done using leftover rice, probably because it has gotten time to dry and fries in a nicer way than freshly cooked, moist rice. At worst your meal might become mushy if you do it with freshly cooked rice, but nothing extra serious.