Let's talk some more about the context of fried rice and the BBC video and why it's gotten ridiculed.
We have the BBC saying the following:
1) Here's a recipe that matches Chinese take-out
2) I know you think it's hard, but it's not
3) Let's show you how to cook the rice for the dish
What's missing (besides the poorly done rice cooking instructions)? As others have pointed out, fried rice is used with day-old rice. In fact, it's pretty much something you do when you have leftover rice. It's not fancy and difficult to do precisely because of that. For the same reason, there's no set recipe. It's yummy, so it got turned into a dish.
This is the BBC. I love watching their shows. For example, the Great British Bake Off provides all kinds of context and information around British baking while being generally wholesome and supportive about it. Based upon that, I know that the BBC knows how to do cooking shows.
They could have done that here too, including talking about what's traditionally done and how to deal with substitutions. They didn't, and the cooking instructions indicated that they really didn't care to do much research on this. Rice is such a staple that screw-ups with it clearly show an inattention to its importance. If the same fundamental lack of knowledge showed up on the Great British Bake Off, it too would have been subject to ridicule.
