Egg Fried Rice is home-style comfort food for any Chinese family. It’s a dish pulled together by stir-frying leftover rice, eggs and bits and pieces of whatever is in the fridge. Quick, easy and tasty it’s the first dish learnt by many a young cook.
Which is why this video is so hilarious. Uncle Roger, a character created by comedian Nigel Ng, pokes fun at BBC chef, Hersha Patel for making Chinese Fried Rice in a very non-Chinese way.
Uncle Roger is a funny, politically incorrect, thoroughly farcical Chinese ‘uncle.’ Uncle & Auntie are terms of address applied to older adults, not necessarily relations. As an aside … you know you’re truly over the hill when you see a handsome stranger on a bus, he waves you over, gets up and offers you his seat and then insults you by calling you Auntie. As if.
I had a good laugh when I viewed this in July. Although I would never be as distressed as Uncle Roger, I empathized with his reaction to boiling rice in so much water that it had to be drained in a colander.
“What you doing, drain the rice? You killing me, woman. How can you drain rice with a colander, it’s not pasta,”
“…if your rice is too wet, you f**ked up.”
“.. go buy a nice rice cooker.”
Uncle Roger
The video went viral. Over nine million Youtube views, ten million on Twitter and multiple spin-offs from similarly affronted Asian cooks.
There was even a BBC interview with Nigel and Hersha on the Egg Fried Rice sensation. Hersha who is a comedian as well as a cook, said that she’d received lots of trolling on her social media pages.
“I thought the video was very funny and Nigel was very funny…. But people started attacking me for not being able to cook rice properly,” she said.
Hersha admitted that the video’s method of cooking rice was not her personal way, it had been supplied by the BBC Food writers. As she said and Nigel agreed, there are many different cultural approaches to cooking rice.
Today a follow-up video was released. Uncle Roger and Hersha meet up and Hersha demonstrates how she cooks rice at home. More fun!
Toronto, Canada. August 2020
The Sandy Chronicles 
This was brilliant. So, so funny 🙂 And educational to boot.
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Glad you liked it!
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Hilarious… watched both videos . Hiyaa reminded me of Hong Kong. . Finger measure was what my mother would do & children refuse to follow. Rice cooker is much simpler method
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Simpler and sure fire. Besides these newer rice cookers do more than cook rice. Congee, eggs, cakes! I wonder if they’d do my laundry too?
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We were gifted a rice cooker when leaving Hong Kong…good for two of us. Ha… For laundry you would need an industrial size one
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You know, your piece has put me in the mood for Chinese food. And has made me wonder if the restaurants and other businesses In Philadelphia’s Chinatown section are surviving the pandemic (I live near Philly). Chinatown has always been one of my favorite parts of the city. So vibrant and full of character.
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You might be surprised! Chinatowns are a resilient lot. Here in Toronto, restaurants just re-opened and my local Chinese place was hopping with business.
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Hubby and I had a good laugh at this. He grew up in Japan and Hong Kong and he also goes crazy when metal spoon is used. We have a rice cooker and every time he says ..did you cut the rice 😂
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That’s funny Alison! Your hubby sounds like he had an interesting upbringing. I wish I grew up in Japan & HK 🙂 So cool!
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He really did Sandy, and he can do that accent really well. He gets made if the rice is not cooked properly and has to have it served in a special bowl. He says he’s an oriental in western clothing.
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Love it! He sounds like my hubby 🙂
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Oh I love the videos. Thanks for the laughs this morning. I have not come across Uncle Roger! He is the Asian version of Nat’s What I Reckon, isn’t he? I have to say I have never drained rice, but recently have been cheating and using a rice cooker! I haven’t cooked white rice on the stove for so long, been using the microwave. What would Uncle Roger think of that? Sacrilegious, no doubt.
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I had one of those nifty pots for cooking rice in the microwave. Is that what you have? It works very well. For a while I worked in the US and lived in a temporary residence with hardly any cookware. The microwave method was great for cooking rice for one.
I’m glad you liked the video. Uncle Roger is a bit like Nat. Funny how these opinionated old men are getting younger and younger, eh?!
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Yes I cooked rice in a microwave style container. Since I was given the rice cooker, I use that. But only for white rice. I cook brown rice on the stove in the traditional way – but do not use my finger to measure! Is that true? I was confused by that thinking – that doesn’t seem like enough water.
And horror of horrors for Uncle Roger, I use an induction stove!
Obviously, opinionated men in the kitchen are something to laugh at!
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Ditto for me in not cooking brown rice in the rice cooker. I used to cook brown rice on the stove but then I discovered that my Instant Pot is so much faster.
There’s actually a bit of science behind the finger measure. It has to do with the level of evaporation being the same regardless of the quantity of rice. It also assumes that your pot cooks a minimum base quantity, then the finger test works regardless of the scaled up quantity of rice. If that’s not clear, this article may (or may not) clarify it. https://www.exploratorium.edu/food/simmering-rice
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Fascinating. I am going to try the knuckle method with the rice cooker. Do you think that would work?
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The knuckle way works because of evaporation and in the microwave there’d be less or none. Ithink itd be iffy. For any electric rice cooker, you dont really need it because the levels are already marked but you can always check against your knuckle 😉
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I think mine is a cheapie. I don’t think there are any marked levels but Perhaps they are hard to see. It didn’t come with an instruction manual, so I googled to find the ration of water to rice.
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