What is rice cake stir fry?
If you’ve never heard of rice cake stir fry, don’t worry! It’s a regional dish from the area around Shanghai and a bit of a local specialty there. The rice cake itself is a bit like mochi – a dough made from rice flour – but cut into thin slices. In this way it’s not too different from rice noodles, though the shape and texture are unique. Once cooked, the pieces of rice cake have a satisfying soft-bouncy texture that just makes them a joy to eat. This dish incorporates the rice cake in a savory stir fry with sliced chicken, leafy greens, and fried egg. The umami Chinese-style oyster and soy sauce based stir fry sauce ties all the ingredients together and makes the dish familiar and comforting.
Ingredients for making rice cake stir fry
What type of rice cake to use
There are a few different kinds of rice cake available on the market, including cylinder shaped and flat oval shaped. I recommend using the flat oval shaped rice cakes for this recipe, since their thinness allows more surface area to caramelize on the hot pan. Also, this shape is the one typically used for this dish in China.
What skillet to use for rice cake stir fry
I highly recommend using a nonstick skillet for this recipe. Rice cake is quite sticky and starchy once it’s rehydrated, which might cause sticking to the pan. It is possible to use a cast iron or carbon steel skillet to cook this dish. In this case, you need to make sure the rice cake is properly browned before stirring them, which minimizes the sticking.
Substitutions you might make
The rice cake stir fry is a lot like fried rice or fried noodles, since you can use various kinds of meat and veggies in them, to adapt the dish to your current mood (or what you happen to have in the fridge). Here are some possible tweaks you might make to the recipe to make it your own:
Use mushrooms in addition to (or in place of the chicken) – no need to marinate them. In this case, you can also use a vegetarian oyster sauce to make the dish vegan. Use napa cabbage or any other green veggie instead of the baby bok choy Replace the chicken with your favorite sausage (no marinating needed) Instead of scrambling the egg, fry it sunny side up and add it at the end (not traditional but very tasty)
Mise en place
When you’re ready to cook, your table should have:
Marinated chicken Rice cake (pre-soaked if using dried) Baby bok choy, washed and chopped Beaten eggs Chicken broth Mixed sauced Chopped green onion and ginger
How to cook rice cake stir fry
Easy cooking process
Traditional recipes usually use a separate pot to parboil the rice cake before the stir fry. My recipe simplifies the process by steaming the rice cake in the same stir fry skillet with a bit of chicken broth. It is much faster and the rice cake ended up more flavorful. Here is the gist of the cooking process:
More one-dish meals
Beef Pan-Fried Noodles Shrimp Fried Rice Sweet and Sour Salmon with Bok Choy Cantonese Ground Beef Rice and Eggs Singapore Noodles (星洲炒米粉, Singapore Mei Fun)
