Ham Fried Rice

I'm a Chinese food lover and always get ham fried rice with my meal. Often I'm disappointed by the lack of flavor in many restaurants fried rice. I like food to be well seasoned and full of flavor. Fried rice is really easy to make and you can add whatever veggies you like to it, and make it to suite your own taste. I don't have exact measurements for this recipe. You just have to play with it until its what you like.

Ham Fried Rice

by Chelsey W.

white rice

eggs

onion

celery

butter or margarine

ham, fully cooked

soy sauce

Lawry's seasoning salt

pepper

*other optional veggies such as peas or carrots

Cook the rice and set aside. (I cook about 3 cups of uncooked rice) In a large skillet or electric frying pan scramble the eggs. (I scramble about 6 eggs) Remove eggs from pan and set aside. Chop up veggies into small pieces and saute them in a little butter or margarine until tender. (I use about 1 cup of celery and 1 cup of onion) Add chopped up pieces of ham to veggies in frying pan while they are cooking. Add cooked rice and scrambled eggs to veggies and ham in pan. Stir together and then drizzle soy sauce all over the rice. Add however much soy sauce you like. I add a lot. Season with the seasoning salt and a little pepper. Stir everything together to evenly coat rice and heat through.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

A woman in my neighborhood who is an excellent cook used to make this all the time while I was growing up. I finally asked her for the recipe so I could make it for my family. It is very yummy! It has a different flavor than traditional sweet and sour sauce found at a chinese food restaurant. It is easy to prepare but time consuming, because you have to bread and fry up the little pieces of chicken before baking them in the sauce in the oven. It sure makes a delicious meal when you're all done though :)

Sweet & Sour Chicken

by Chelsey W.

4 chicken breasts

garlic salt

cornstarch

2 eggs

oil (vegetable, canola, or olive)

Trim fat from chicken and cut up into bite size pieces. Sprinkle chicken with garlic salt. Dip chicken pieces in corn starch and then the beaten egg. Fry chicken until golden brown in small amount of oil. Place fried chicken in a single layer in a shallow baking dish. Cover chicken with the following sauce.

3/4 c sugar

1/2 c vinegar

1/4 c ketchup

1/4 c chicken broth

1 Tbsp soy sauce

Bring ingredients to a boil in a saucepan and then pour over the chicken. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or up to an hour if your chicken pieces are very large (you want your chicken cooked through). Stir every 15 min. Serve baked chicken over rice.

*I usually double the sauce ingredients and pour half onto chicken and keep half in saucepan for extra sauce to eat with the rice. Don't place doubled sauce on the chicken because it will become too soggy and you'll lose all the breading. Let the extra sauce just simmer for a while to cook it down and thicken a bit.

**I was told if you want a simple version of this recipe you can skip the part where you bread and fry up the chicken and simply put the whole chicken breasts in the crockpot, pour the sauce on top, and cook them for a few hours until chicken falls apart.Then serve over rice.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

I love the sweet and sour sauce from a local Chinese restaurant in my area called ABC Mandarin and have been in search for a copycat recipe. I've made several different sweet and sour sauces now and haven't quite found it, but this one was really good. I found this recipe on Blog Chef and made a few slight changes. I like using brown sugar in sweet and sour sauce and this one called for white sugar. I made the sauce as directed but felt it was a little more sour than sweet so I added about 1/4 c brown sugar and I thought it was better. Next time I'll try using just brown sugar and none of the white. Then I changed the preparation process a little. I wanted the flavor from the onion and green pepper to get in the sauce so I let it simmer together. The end result was delicious. I also used a tip from Real Mom Kitchen and made it with popcorn chicken which made this a simple meal to prepare. If you want to bread and fry your chicken I 'm sure it would be even better.

Recipe:

cooked rice

chicken (use deep fried recipe or popcorn chicken)

2 onions cut into 1" chunks

1 green pepper cut into 1" chunks

1 can pineapple chunks (reserve juice)

sweet and sour sauce

1/2 c vinegar

1/3 c sugar (original recipe)

(I added 1/4 brown sugar and will only use brown sugar in future)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 c orange juice

1/4 c pineapple juice

1/4 c ketchup

2 Tbsp cornstarch with 1/8 c pineapple juice (thickener)

I added some red food coloring

Deep fried chicken breasts

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1" cubes

(you can use less chicken if you buy huge chicken breasts like I do)

flour

4 egg yolks

2 Tbsp soy sauce

oil

Mix egg yolk and soy sauce with a little water. Roll chicken in flour, egg, and then flour again. Deep fry in oil 2-3 min., drain on paper towels.

This is how I made it. First start cooking your rice. I then fried my popcorn chicken in a little oil and drained the excess when it was done. Meanwhile, I mixed together all sauce ingredients in a sauce pan and brought it to a boil. I let it simmer 5-10 minutes while I cut up vegetables and fried the chicken. Mix together the cornstarch and juice and then thicken the sweet and sour sauce with it. I added a little red food coloring to make it look better. In a very large frying pan or wok stir fry the vegetables with a little oil for a couple minutes. You want the vegetables to be crisp. Add the pineapple chunks. Add in the sauce and let it simmer with the vegetables for around 15 min. for good flavor. Serve rice, with the chicken on top, and then the sauce with veggies over it all.

Chicken Fried Rice

This recipe came from Nicea on Good Things Utah. It is a family favorite of hers and she had so many viewers who liked it she made it a second time on the show. I decided I'd better try it. I made it according to her directions but felt it needed more flavor. So this is her recipe that I've altered a bit to fit my taste. The result was delicious! I recommend investing in a rice cooker if you don't have one. I bought a nice, big one at Costco and use it all the time. It makes rice perfectly, is easy to use and clean up.

Recipe:

3 chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces

6 scrambled eggs

2 carrots grated finely

1/2 onion finely chopped

1/2 c melted butter or margarine

2 tsp garlic powder

5-6 c cooked white rice

soy sauce

Lawry's seasoning salt

Put the chicken pieces in a ziploc bag then coat with soy sauce. Let the chicken marinade an hour in the fridge. If there's no time to marinade just add soy sauce while cooking chicken. Cook rice. In a very large frying pan or I like to use my electric frying pan cook chicken in a little olive oil. Add in carrots and onions and saute until soft. Push meat and veggies to the side and scramble the eggs. Add cooked rice and stir everything together. Pour melted butter over the top and sprinkle on garlic salt. Coat rice with more soy sauce. Stir then add seasoning salt to taste. Let the rice fry a little bit then serve.