This recipe is meant to mimic the fried rice of my favorite LA Chinese restaurant - Yang Chow (or Hunam, as it was called in my youth). The key feature is that it isn't loaded down with soy sauce. Your diners can always add it post-cooking.

Serves 4 as a side dish:

Ingredients
1 cup chinese/short-grain rice, cooked (Put 1 cup rice, 1.5 cups water in pot. Bring to boil. Reduce to simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.) and fluffed with spoon or fork
2 eggs, lightly beaten

When I was a little kid, my mom and I once made dumplings/potstickers with this neat white foldy press (that helps crimp them together). There's a really cute picture of me at about 5 years old, standing on a step-stool, wearing an apron, and proudly holding up a potsticker (if I can get my mom to scan it in, I will post it).

Anyway, on a recent visit to Los Angeles, I saw the potsticker crimper sitting in a drawer (probably unused by my mother since that day in the photo), and asked if I could take it home. (I subsequently saw the exact same crimper for sale at Hill's Kitchen about a week later, but oh well.) With the proper implement in hand, and having just acquired a "Cook's Illustrated" recipe for perfect potstickers (compliments of Jon's mom), we went to making potstickers.

The recipe that follows is a combination of the Cook's recipe and the handwritten one my mom had from an Asian cooking class she took long ago. No doubt that is the recipe I followed at age 5.