Kimchi fried rice
Kimchi fried rice with an over-easy egg on top is what hopes and dreams are made of, nom my god. This rich, savory and sour dish is all you need when you are a bit hungover on a Saturday, or when you didn’t realize your bestie who is visiting you landed an hour early at noon and you forgot to make a yummy meal to welcome them.
You got some leftover rice? Alright, let’s make kimchi fried rice- it takes 10 minutes. Put on your apron, let’s get to cooking.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10-12 minutes
Serves: 2
Ingredients:
3 cup white rice (best cooked the day before)
1 1/2-2 cup kimchi chopped
1/4 cup kimchi juice
1/4 cup onion diced
4 garlic cloves minced
2 tbsp roasted sesame oil
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 seaweed snack packet
2 tbsp Kewpie - Japanese mayo (optional)
2 green onion stalks roughly chopped
2 eggs
Recipe:
First and foremost go cook your rice tonight to make this recipe tomorrow! Trust me, it makes a huge difference!
Protip: Rice cooked the day before and refrigerated has the right moisture content and fluffiness to make fried rice.
Chop up the kimchi as fine as you’d like and don’t worry about straining the liquid. I like mine very fine vs chunky, so I chop it the size of finely diced onion. This takes me to my next point, dice the onion.
On high, heat a skillet, add the oil, and once it starts to smoke through in the onion and cook until it’s translucent and slightly browned (approx. 1 minute). Add the chopped garlic and stir constantly until it starts to lightly brown too. Some add the rice before the kimchi, but I prefer to fry my kimchi first and reduce the liquid. So go ahead and cook the kimchi for roughly 2 minutes. Decrease the heat to medium-high and throw in the rice. Add the kimchi juice, soy sauce, and kewpie and mix well. This is when you change your cooking style, and won’t be stiring your fried rice much BECAUSE you want the rice to burn a bit, get that crisp-crisp on.
Protip: You might be thinking why kewpie? Since this recipe is so heavy on the acid with kimchi, you want to introduce some fat to balance it out. Some prefer to start the recipe by using butter instead of cooking oil, but I like to use kewpie because kewpie, unlike regular run-of-the-mill mayonnaise has a strong yolky taste at the forefront. This really ties in the over-easy egg on top of the finished dish.
Stir the rice, every 30 seconds or so to get that good burn on the rices. This really brings out the toasty flavor. And for the last leg of the cooking, pour in the roasted sesame oil, crumble up a packet of seaweed snack on top, and sprinkle the green onions in. Toss/stir to mix the last ingredients and you’re done. Serve with an over-easy egg and garnish with some more green onions. Happy eating!
