Selina S. Lee

Oh myyyyy! I just realized my last post was back in March 2018. Where have I been? What’s been happening in my life? I have so much to say and tell but I’ll have to save that for another post. If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you might be aware that I have embarked on a pretty ambitious goal earlier this year. The goal is to come up with 100 recipes around kimchi. Making seasonal kimchi for fermentation but also any beloved Korean dishes using kimchi as a main ingredient. When the world pandemic happened in mid March and when we went into shelter-in-place, this project went into full gear and I decided to share a few of my favorites here on my website. Ideally one every weekend. 

This dish is called ‘Volcano Kimchi Fried Rice’ and it’s basically a recreation of how you would normally see kimchi fried rice being served at famous Korean BBQ restaurants. Koreans are notorious for finishing their BBQ meal with fried rice made with any remnant sauce or meats. The BBQ grill usually has an outer rim of eggs with cheese melting on top. Here is an easy-to-make recipe that you can make at home and get the same kind of experience. #wkdkimchiproject #100waystokimchi

VOLCANO EGG KIMCHI FRIED RICE (고깃집 김치볶음밥) – 1-2 servings

INGREDIENT

• 1 bowl of cooked rice (approx. 2 cups, preferably day-old, kept in room temperature)
• 1 cup chopped kimchi (just ripe, ready-to-eat)
• 1 cup chopped spam or bacon
• 2 green onions
• 1/2 cup mixed shredded cheese (pizza blend with mozzarella works great!)
• 1 tsp gochujang or gochugaru (korean chili pepper paste or powder)
• 3 tbsp neutral cooking oil / 2 tbsp if using bacon(preferably grapeseed oil)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 eggs

PREPARATION

Prepare kimchi by cutting them in small pieces. Using the kitchen shear in a bowl will save time and mess! Finely chop the lighter part of the green onion and cut the greener part in thin slanted slices (‘sexy scallions’) to be used for the garnish. Cut spam in tiny little cubes, cut bacon into small thin strip pieces. Make egg mix by whisking 3 eggs to set it aside.

INSTRUCTION

Combine oil and chopped green onion over low-medium heat and cook it until it starts to sizzle. If you are using bacon as your choice of protein, add less oil. Add spam or bacon and cook it until fat is melted and the meat is cooked and brown. About 5 min. Add soy sauce, kimchi and gochujang and cook it until kimchi is nicely caramelized. If your kimchi is too sour, add a little bit of sugar. Turn the heat off to add rice and mix everything together thoroughly using two spoons or spatula by taking your time. Make sure every grain of rice is coated with kimchi mix. Put it back on high heat to stir-fry one last time. For creating the volcano like plating, create a mountain shaped rice by using a bowl as your mold to put it upside down on a non-stick pan. Add the egg wash around the rim, add cheese then cook it for 5 min until cheese is melted. You can put a lid on to make the cheese and egg to cook faster. Add your ‘sexy scallions’ on top to serve. Enjoy.