Fried Rice

I love Chinese food.  Well, probably not real Chinese food, more like the fake-American-kind-of-Chinese food.  I bought a Chinese cookbook once and was a bit disappointed.  Um where were the recipes for all my favorite dishes?  The book was filled with more authentic recipes that called for things I had never heard of and had no idea how to get.  This recipe is really easy with simple to find ingredients and it's the best fried rice I have been able to make at home.

Fried Rice

Ingredients:
1 lb bacon, cut into matchsticks

1 medium onion, chopped

4.5 cups cooked rice (I put 2 cups uncooked rice in my rice cooker and that's about what it produces.)

1 T + 1 tsp soy sauce

2 T sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup frozen peas

2 eggs, beaten (optional)

Directions:

Start the rice cooking in either rice cooker or pot.  In a pan, stir bacon and onion while cooking over med-high heat until bacon is well done and onions are tender.  You want most of the fat to be rendered and the bacon to almost get to the crispy point so it's not soggy in the rice.

 Drain and reserve 2 T of drippings.  Return bacon, onion and drippins to pan.  Add cooked rice and rest of ingredients, stir until incorporated and peas are heated through.

If you want to add the eggs, in a seperate frying pan heat 1tsp of drippings or oil,  add eggs to pan and swirl to coat bottom of pan.  Cook for 1-2 mintues and then flip over and cook other side.   Cut into pieces with spatula, add to rice and mix.

I have also made this with chicken.  Just cut chicken into chunks (probaly about 4 chicken tenders) and add to the pan with bacon and onion once it's almost done, continue with the rest of the recipe.  Taste and add more salt, sugar or soy sauce to get it how you like it. :)

Source:  Amanda Original