One Good Meal: Jason Wu’s Untraditional (and Easy) Fried Rice

In “One Good Meal,” we ask cooking-inclined creative people to share the story behind a favorite dish they actually make and eat at home on a regular basis — and not just when they’re trying to impress.

When the fashion designer Jason Wu emigrated with his family from Taiwan to Canada at age 9, he spoke no English — and that wasn’t the only issue. He also had to suffer through lunch. While the other kids in his Vancouver school were digging into pizza Lunchables, Wu would show up with fried rice or steamed vegetables. “There weren’t a lot of Asian kids in my class, so we would get teased,” he says today. “Like ‘Oh, hey, enjoy your cabbage.’ It wasn’t very sexy, let’s put it that way.”

But a funny thing happened when Wu turned 18 and moved to New York to attend design school at Parsons: Living on his own and cooking for the first time, he began to make his mother’s fried rice. Then he kept remaking it. The dish was cheap, easy and undeniably delicious. “Growing up in the West, I was always wanting to be very westernized to fit in,” he says. “And in my 20s, I really started re-embracing my roots.”

Wu, who will show his Spring 2019 collection today at New York Fashion Week, went on to become one of the most successful designers of his generation. Honored by the CFDA, anointed by Hugo Boss and worn by Michelle Obama for both of her husband’s inaugural balls, the 35-year-old designer — known for sculptural pieces that are feminine but never girlie — lives in a TriBeCa apartment with a big open kitchen where he loves to entertain. Sundays are, he says, “a very familial situation” for close friends to enjoy comfort fare like his mom’s rice. As a kid, he adds, his mother’s rice was “the Asian version of stuffing,” a catchall for whatever ingredients were in the fridge. “That’s how the ham got in there, because you usually don’t have that in a fried rice. It was kind of like the ultimate East meets West.” He keeps ham in the mix today, tossing it with rice cooked a couple of days ahead of time and then refrigerated. “That’s important,” he says, because the resting time “keeps the rice in shape without getting soggy when you fry it.”

He’ll serve the rice with a vegetable dish, or maybe a Peking duck he orders in. “Eventually,” he says. “You go to what you know.”

Jason’s Mom’s Fried Rice

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

• 1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce

• 2 ½ tablespoons cooking oil

• 1 tablespoon freshly minced garlic

• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced

• ½ cup extra-thick-cut ham, cubed

• ¼ cup chopped scallions

1. Remove rice from refrigerator and separate it with a fork until the grains are no longer clumped together. Set aside.

2. Mix egg with sesame oil and ½ tablespoon soy sauce. Beat lightly with a fork.

3. Add ½ tablespoon oil to a wok (or frying pan) on medium-high heat, and swirl until the wok is evenly coated. Add egg mixture and swirl until it has the consistency of an omelet. When the egg starts to puff, flip it over for a few seconds and remove from wok. Chop omelet into small ribbons.

4. Heat remaining oil in wok and add minced garlic until it browns slightly, about 20 seconds. (Take care not to burn it.) Add shiitake mushrooms and cook about 1 to 2 minutes until they become soft and fragrant. Add cubed ham and carrots and sauté all contents together. Once ham starts to brown, add rice and remaining soy sauce to the wok.

5. Sauté contents for 2 to 3 minutes on high heat until a crust starts to form in the base of the wok. Add the chopped scallions and chopped omelet. Turn off heat and let rice rest about 2 minutes. Mix again, scraping off some of the crust to achieve a crunchier texture. Serve.