Vietnamese Garlic Fried Rice + Shrimp + Video

Mmm simple Vietnamese garlic fried rice (Com Chien Toi Trung) with fried shrimp!

Super simple, I even bought pre-cooked/peeled shrimp for this and fried it in Annatto sesame oil for that dark sunset orange shrimp 🍤 color!

The secret to get that extra yellow, eggy color and taste is to mix in one raw egg with your cold day old rice prior to frying up the rice. I also like partially scrambling eggs separately as well for those bigger egg chunks in your fried rice! Mmmm

Scrambled eggs:
2 eggs (beat with 1 tsp of fish sauce)
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp water
1 tsp light evoo (or cooking/vegetable oil)

Rice:
2-3 cups cold cooked rice (1-2 day-old rice)
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg

Shrimps:
10-12 raw shrimp (defrosted, deveined, rinsed, drained)
1 tbs sesame oil
1/4 tsp annatto powder (optional, it just helps with orange colored shrimps)
1/4 tsp salt
Fresh cracked pepper

Fried rice:
2-3 tbs light EVOO
3-5 garlic cloves, finely minced (about 1 tbs minced ginger)
1-2 tsp Maggi Seasoning Sauce
1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup of thinly sliced scallions (I like just using the green parts, but you can use the white parts as well)

1. Cut up scallions
2. Whip 2 eggs with 1 tsp fish sauce, 1 tsp water and set aside.
3. Add 2-3 cups one or two day old rice in a large bowl and add 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 egg on top of the rice and mix with hands, break apart all rice and set aside.
4. In small sauce pan heat 1 tbs sesame oil with 1/4 tsp annatto powder and cook until fragrant and orange and transfer to a bowl.
5. Toss shrimp in bowl with annatto/sesame oil along with 1/4 tsp salt and some fresh cracked pepper (use just the top part of the oil that is clear without the annatto powder residue).
6. Pan fry shrimps for about a minute on each side until golden and a little crispy at edges, set aside.
7. Whip two eggs with 1 tsp fish sauce, 1 tsp olive oil and 1 tsp water and lightly scramble in big chunks and set aside in a bowl.
8. In a pan on medium-high heat, add a generous drizzle of oil and add in the finely minced garlic. Sauté until garlic starts to soften and becomes fragrant (about 20 seconds) and add rice in and start frying your rice for a couple minutes).
9. Add the eggs back in and add scallions, 1-2 tsp Maggi Seasoning Sauce, lightly break up the scrambled eggs so they're mixed with the rice.
10. Add a little salt (you might need 1/4 tsp or so) and black pepper to season, add shrimp and fry for a few minutes.
11. Taste the fried rice and adjust seasonings as desired. Sometimes I like adding a little soy sauce as well but traditionally this is a simpler/lighter fried rice compared to like a Chinese saucy fried rice.