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Chinese Style
1 can shrimps or 1 cup fresh shrimps measured after boiling 1 egg, well beaten 4 tablespoons minced onion 1/3 cup chopped nut meats, any kind 1/2 tablespoon Karo, Blue Label 3 cups boiled rice 2 tablespoons Mazola Dice the shrimps, add the egg, nuts and onion and combine with the rice. Season to taste with salt and a little Worcestershire sauce, if desired, and fry slowly in the Mazola, turning the mixture occasionally. Press into omelet shape and let brown.
A shrimp fried rice built around two Corn Products Refining Company brands, which is why corn syrup turns up in a savory dish. Everything here works in a modern pan with minimal translation.
- Mazola is corn oilMazola was and is refined corn oil; 2 tablespoons of any neutral high-smoke-point oil does the same work. Peanut oil is closer to what a Chinese kitchen would have used.
- Karo Blue LabelKaro was sold in several labeled grades in this period, and half a tablespoon of ordinary light corn syrup is the safe substitution. Its role is a faint sweetness and a little browning help, so a scant teaspoon of sugar covers it if you have no syrup.
- Use cold riceThree cups of boiled rice means cooked rice, and day-old refrigerated rice is what keeps the grains separate. Freshly boiled rice steams in the pan and the mixture turns to paste before it can brown.
- Canned shrimpA can of shrimp of this period was small, probably in the neighbourhood of 5 oz (the recipe treats it as about a cup), and canned shrimp is typically salty. Rinse and drain it well before dicing, and hold back salt until the end; a cup of boiled fresh shrimp is the better option either way.
- Nut meatsThe recipe leaves the choice open; walnuts, pecans or almonds all suit it. Toast them first, since they get no browning of their own once buried in the rice.
- The eggBeaten egg stirred raw into the rice coats the grains and sets as the mixture fries, which is the intent here rather than the ribbons of a stir-fried fried rice. Keep the pan moving early or the egg will set in one sheet on the bottom.
- "Fry slowly" and the omelet shapeRead this as moderate heat with occasional turning until heated through, then press the mass flat into a round and leave it undisturbed a few minutes to build a crust. Slide it out whole and cut in wedges.
- YieldThree cups of rice plus shrimp serves four as a light main course, or six alongside other dishes.
This comes from a promotional cookbook issued by the makers of Karo syrup and Mazola oil, which explains why both brands appear by name in a dish that needs neither. Filing it under "Chinese Style" in an "Unusual Recipes" section tells you how American home cooks encountered chow-style cooking in the early twentieth century: chop suey had spread out of Chinese restaurants and into the general repertoire, but such dishes were still treated as novelties to be reproduced with pantry staples rather than with soy sauce, ginger or a wok. The Worcestershire sauce looks like a substitute for soy, though period American recipes of this kind frequently do call for soy sauce itself; the chopped nuts and molded omelet shape may likewise owe something to the era's habit of making a little protein stretch across a lot of starch.