Egg Fried Rice

Use rice cooked the day before, cooled quickly and kept in the fridge, as the steamed basmati rice in this collection sets out. Rice left standing on the hob overnight is not safe to fry, and reheated rice is reheated once only.

Take the rice out of the fridge and break the clumps up with wet fingers on a plate, until no lump is bigger than a pea.

Do that before the pan goes anywhere near the heat. Cold rice either goes into the pan as separate grains or it goes in as bricks, and bricks do not break up once they are hot and oiled.

Understand why it has to be yesterday's. Rice cooked the same day is soft and full of free water, and it steams and collapses into paste; chilling firms the grains as the starch recrystallises, and firm grains are the only ones that fry.

Beat the eggs with the 1g of fine salt until the colour is even.

Have everything sliced, measured and beside the hob. The whole dish takes four minutes once the pan is hot.

Set a wok or wide frying pan over high heat for 2 minutes, until a drop of water vanishes on contact.

Add 1 tbsp of the oil and swirl it round.

Pour in the eggs, let them set for 10 seconds, then push them into large soft folds for 20-30 seconds and tip them onto a plate while they still look glossy and underdone.

Take them out early. They go back into a very hot pan later, and eggs cooked firm at this stage come out as dry rubber in the finished bowl.

Add the remaining 2 tbsp of oil, then the spring onion whites, the garlic and the ginger.

Toss for 20-30 seconds, until they smell sweet. Aromatics burn in a pan this hot in well under a minute.

Add the rice and spread it across the base of the pan.

Leave it alone for 60-90 seconds, until it starts to sizzle sharply and you hear individual grains popping against the metal.

Toss, press the rice flat again and repeat for 3-4 minutes in total, until the grains are hot right through, separate, and jump loose from the pan instead of dragging behind the spatula.

Add the peas straight from frozen and toss for 1 minute.

Return the egg, breaking it into rough pieces with the edge of the spatula.

Pour the soy sauce down the hot inside wall of the pan rather than into the middle. Most of its water flashes off on the way down; poured onto the rice it wets one patch and leaves it soft and grey.

Toss for 30 seconds, until the colour is even.

Take the pan off the heat and stir through the sesame oil, the white pepper and the spring onion greens.

Serve straight away.

Do not double this in one pan. Two portions is about what a domestic burner can keep above frying temperature, and a doubled batch steams itself soft — cook it twice instead.