Fried rice is a staple in Chinese cuisine. It is usually fast and easy to make and will satisfy your appetite without any fuss. There are many ways to make fried rice flavorful without using too many ingredients. For example, adding hoisin sauce, kimchi, cumin powder, or soy sauce. Today I want to introduce another great ingredient, one that will stay good in your pantry forever, and spice up your meals wonderfully!
Introducing the olive vegetable
Olive fried rice is based on the main ingredient – the Chinese olive vegetable. It is not the pickled whole European olive you’re familiar with, but a paste-like mixture of mustard greens and olive fruits pickled in soy sauce and oil. It has a deeply savory and earthy taste with a hint of olive, but is smooth in texture and more complex. It is a specialty of Teochew (or chao zhou, 潮州) cuisine, a branch of Chinese cuisine, related to both Fujian and Cantonese styles, with very distinctive flavors.
Chinese folk legend says the pickled ingredient was invented by a housewife by pure coincidence. The housewife worried that the unripe olive fruits that had been blown from a tree by a storm would be wasted. She brought them home to cook with mustard greens, just like a southern Chinese person would make pickles. The result was surprisingly delicious. And thus, the olive vegetable was invented. However, according to historical record, the olive tree was first brought from Vietnam to Teochew before AD 900, because olive tree resin was commonly used for ship manufacture. And thus the habit of eating olives started way back. Olive vegetables might not look very pretty. But they will make your dish shine, just like sliced olives on top of pizza. When you’re using olive vegetables, make sure to transfer the portion you will use onto a small plate. The brand I use contains whole olives and olive pits mixed with the mustard greens. You should remove the pits and slice the whole olives into thin pieces before cooking.
Easy and flavorful fried rice
I grew up in northern China. Eating olive vegetables is not a part of my culture. I came across this delicious pickle when a reader asked for an olive fried rice recipe. I learned how to cook olive fried rice by researching multiple websites, including recipes written by native Chinese foodies. Most recipes use ground pork, like this delicious fried rice by Noob Cook. But any protein will work in this recipe. For example, you can use ham or sausage, which skips the steps of marinating the pork, and just cook it separately. I chose to use bacon in my recipe. Because it is extremely easy to prepare, its flavor goes well with olive vegetables, and the extra bacon grease makes the rice just perfect. Note, this recipe requires minimal prep, but you’ll still need to get the ingredients ready and in place before turning on the heat. Like I always emphasize, stir frying requires high heat. For that reason, things will happen very quickly after you add the first ingredient into the pan. The stew-making style, chopping-as-you-cook, simply won’t cut it here. When you’re ready to cook, you should have the ingredients in the picture below near your stove.
The rest is simple. Make sure your pan is hot throughout the cooking and add each ingredient one at a time. The olive vegetables are very powerful, so you can leave them to work their magic in flavoring the rice. In 10 minutes, you’ll have a plate of comforting fried rice that is way tastier than what you’d get from your local Chinese restaurant.
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