Prepping the Rice for Fried Rice (볶음밥)

Type of Rice:

You will need dry, low moisture rice when making fried rice. The rice used for Korean fried rice is medium grain white rice (백미).

Drying your Rice:

The reason we use low moisture rice is that if your rice is too wet, then it will get soggy, and stick to the pan as your stir fry it. We ideally want to see the individual grains of rice in the fried rice dish, not clumps of fried rice.

When you cook your rice, you can cook it with a little less water added to the rice cooker. The usual ratio of rice to water is 1:1, but you can add a tbsp or so less water to the rice cooker so that the rice is a little drier but still completely cooked and fluffy. If you do not have time to make separate rice then you can just use your regular cooked medium grain rice; this is just an extra step.

Now that you have your cooked rice, there are two main ways that you can prepare your fried rice for the wok. 

1. You can spread your cooked rice on a plate or a tray and let it cool completely on your counter while you prep your other ingredients. This method allows the steam to be released from the freshly cooked rice and lets it dry out. You can even place it under a fan like when you stir fry namul (볶는나물) to cool it quickly. 
2. The second way is to do the same method but then place the cooled rice into the fridge to further dry out the grains of rice (wrap your cooled rice with plastic wrap if placing the plate or try in the fridge). You can store the rice in the fridge just for the amount of time it takes to prep the other ingredients, a couple of hours or overnight. You can also use this method if you want to prep rice for fried rice in advance for the week. Do not add any oils/fats or too much liquid seasoning to your rice when storing it, or it will become very difficult to break up the rice once you take it out of the fridge and try to use it. Keep in mind that rice in the fridge will dry out, this is a good thing when it comes to fried rice, but at the same time, if your rice is stored for too long in the fridge, it will become hard as if it is uncooked. My recommendation is that if you want to prep rice for fried rice in advance, then make sure to use it within 3-4 days. 

Based on my experience with making fried rice, I would not recommend using uncooked instant rice packets. Each time I have used these as a convenient hack, the rice is very soggy in the end. I would recommend using freshly cooked rice instead for a better texture.

Prepping Your Rice before Adding to the Wok:

Before adding your prepped rice to the wok, you will need to break up the rice by hand. Put on some gloves and try to break the rice into separate granules, it is easier to do this before you add the rice to the wok, but even after adding it, you may need to break up some chunks of rice in the wok as well with your spatula.