Restaurant-Style Egg Fried Rice

Home fried rice comes out wet and sticky; restaurant fried rice is dry, with every grain separate. Same ingredients — the difference is how much water you remove along the way. This video walks the whole chain: rice cooked with equal parts water instead of the package ratio, fluffed so the steam escapes, eggs drained through a sieve so the watery white never reaches the pan, frying in stages because a home burner can’t hold heat like a restaurant wok, a thin layer instead of a pile, and soy sauce run around the blazing edge so it toasts into aroma instead of soaking in. The payoff is a sound: when the rice starts to crackle, the last of the water is leaving — it’s frying, not steaming. Ten minutes at the stove, pantry staples only.