When my daughter stopped eating meat it took me awhile to find my groove cooking things without meat. We all loved fried rice but it didn’t seem to have enough flavor without putting bacon in it. This dish definitely has enough flavor with or without bacon. I made a cookbook of all her favorite recipes when she moved out and this is from that book. I am not someone that measures much, I cook almost completely by feel so take these amounts as a guide and not an order. This is our go to side when we have many different Asian themed meals, such as the above Furikake Ahi.
Ingredients:
cooking oil (about 2 tablespoons)
1 cup kimchi, cut into thumbnail size pieces
1/4 to 1/2 onion
5 or 6 baby carrots finally chopped
Ground pepper to taste
2 cups steamed white short/medium grain rice – if it is freshly cooked, leave it out for 5 to 10 mins at room temperature to cool down before cooking, we often used leftover rice.
3 x-large eggs, scrambled
1/2 tsp minced garlic (you can use equal amount of fresh ginger too)
1/4 cup kimchi juice – this liquid is from the bottom of the kimchi container
Shoyu (amount depends on how dry rice is)
1/2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 to 2 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds, to garnish
(optional) 1/2 stalk green onion, thinly sliced
(optional) roasted seasoned seaweed, shredded
Instructions:
On medium high heat preheat a pan/wok and once heated, add the cooking oil and spread it well with a spatula.
Add the garlic, stirfry it fast for about 10 seconds. Then add onion and baby carrots and fry for a few minutes. (you can add chopped bacon here too if you need that in your fried rice)
Add the kimchi and stir until 80% of it is cooked. Add the rice and the kimchi juice. Mix all of them together well and thoroughly.
I like to grind some fresh pepper in at this point.
Add shoyu and sesame oil and continue to mix rice to soften and make moist. (you can cover to steam it a little but make sure not to burn the bottom).
Add scrambled egg, mix together and turn off heat.
sprinkle green onions and shredded seaweed if you like.
Hope you enjoy this, I buy no MSG kim chee but you live your life.
Thank you @Loveshaq! Such a treat to have your recipes, and to have bonus FYCE!
This might be a better question for MYO than you but do you know how you can see all the posts you have created under a category? I wouldn’t want to repeat something I have already done.
Oh, I bet that’s good, but I had a bad experience the last time I ate kim chee. Actually, I had a good experience, but my wife had a bad experience, if you catch my odoriferous meaning.
I blamed it on the dog, but she wasn’t buying it.
I know exactly what you mean. Maybe taking Beano before could help? My wife has no sense of smell so I can have kim chee burritos and be fine.
The good news for most people is their bodies tend to adjust to kim chee, sauerkraut and fermented pickles once the probiotics sort themselves out. There can be a war in the gut over the short term, though, but for most people they help fight inflammation in the long run.
I’m sure my gut biome would adjust to kim chee, but not before I’d have to adjust to being single again.
Speaking from experience, Korean food is very good going down, not so good coming out.
Terrible story warning…
A few years back, I was visiting a friend in San Diego and my last night there we hit a Korean BBQ joint. Had a lot of kalhbi, kimchee and Soju (Korean moonshine.) Among the assorted Kimchees (there are many many many styles) was Daikon Radish. I had a mix of fermented cabbage, raddish, garlic, peppers and assorted other Korean dishes brewing in my gut overnight.
At the airport, I got stuck behind a group of obnoxious golfers who decided to offload their clubs. It took forever or felt like it as I was starting to feel my gut needing to push out my last meal. After it took these guys 45 minutes to check in their clubs and get their passes. It only took me 5 minutes to get my boarding pass (I had only carry on.)
Somehow, I managed to rush to the terminal and got into the single male bathroom. It wasn’t pleasant smelling at all. A bit of twist of fate, the obnoxious golfers were next in line and I could hear one of them screaming about the smell.
I walked away with a smirk on my face.
I have mentioned that I’m not an adventurous eater. I’ve never tried Kim chee. But I like spicy food and cabbage. So, I guess I should?
I found the smell very oft putting as a youth but love it now. If you like spicy and like cabbage, it’s a no brainer.
The combo of salt, hot pepper and garlic is really addictive. I make it sometimes and can’t always get through all of it before it gets really sour, but it’s still pretty good like that in stuff like soup where you can dilute it.
Same here.
My mom makes similar fried rice (with spam) but I get it if one wants veg options.
When my eldest daughter is not around, I can get away with putting in bacon, spam or Portuguese sausage in my fried rice like we did growing up. So many different Asian and Pacific Island cultures do different versions of fried rice it opens up a world of variations. I bet your mom’s fried rice was amazing!
I grew up making fried rice with Lap-Xuong and love all the variations out there.
I love Lap-Xuong in fried rice!
This sounds delightful!