Fried rice with chicken.
Fried rice (chǎofàn) originated in China as a practical way to use leftover cooked rice, with roots tracing back to the Sui dynasty (589–618 AD) in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province. The dish spread across Southeast and East Asia with Chinese diaspora communities, adapting to local pantries in every country it touched. The chicken variant became a global staple, standardized across Chinese-American, Thai, Indonesian, and countless other restaurant traditions, each adding local aromatics and sauces while keeping the core wok-fry technique intact.