golf nut > wrote:
+ precooked meat. Is that meat fried with garlic and peppers and soy sauce.

What my mom made? Not usually... The fried rice I grew up with
isn't haute cuisine at all -- just simple home cooking by a very busy,
working mom trying to save money.

My favorite meat for fried rice was Chinese sausages. For breakfast,
pop them out of the package and pan fry them (plain -- it doesn't need
any other flavoring). Put one sausage on a piece of bread per person,
and you're good to run out the door -- you don't even have to cut the
sausage. For lunch (on weekends), cut the leftover sausages up and make
fried rice to get rid of leftover steamed rice from last night's dinner.

Sometimes, the meat in the fried rice would be last night's steak (which
was often pan fried with just salt and black pepper). After BBQ parties,
there would be cut-up leftover hamburgers, hot dogs, or BBQ chicken.
After Thanksgiving, there would be turkey chunks. When there was leftover
rice without leftover meat, the meat might be bacon (cut strip of bacon,
fry in pan until they're nice and crispy, and then scramble egg and
add everything else) or even cold cuts. It was all very quick, simple,
and delicious.

I don't often order fried rice at restaurants (and especially not cheap
Chinese fast food places). The only reason I ordered it at Benihana was
because the person who picked the place said that we have to order the
fried rice to get the best parts of the show. The fried rice at Benihana
tastes absolutely nothing like what my mom used to make. But, since we
had fried rice so often, if my mom made fried rice the way Benihana does,
our family would probably have all died of heart attacks by now.

+ Betty Lee wrote:
+ > My mom used to make fried rice with whatever was leftover from the
+ > night before. Grease pan, scramble some eggs. Chop up some leftover
+ > (pre-cooked) meat and onions (either green or yellow... or both).
+ > Throw them all into the pan. Flavor with a touch of soy sauce (or
+ > ketchup or garlic or some combination of the above). Cook until hot.