In warm-weather
Asian cuisines where
rice rather than
wheat is the main dietary staple, fried rice is a traditional answer to the question, "What should we do with this leftover rice?" (Other answers include
congee and the rice soup called
jook.) The question of what to add to the dish is traditionally answered by whatever other ingredients happen to be left over or handy -- typically
meat scraps,
vegetables, and
eggs. Fried rice, though, has also become an institution in itself, both in Asia and in the
American-vernacular version of
Chinese cuisine, with deluxe versions such as yangchow (or 'house special fried rice') carrying something of a flag for the fried-rice concept. The Indonesian flagship version is
nasi goreng, served with a fried egg on top, while the
Korean variant adds
kimchi. Thailand reverses the concept entirely with 'American fried rice,' a concoction of rice with
fried chicken,
hot dog pieces,
ketchup,
french fries, and if they have
White Castle in Thailand, then they've probably experimented with that as well.
Japan generally follows the Chinese version, with a certain lightness of seasoning and sometimes the addition of
sake,
seaweed, or other at-hand ingredients.