Kimchi Fried Egg Rice

If you were to ask me what meal I could eat every day for the rest of my life, I would think long and hard about my response. There's a chance that I might consider a Boxing Day turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich as my forever meal of choice, or perhaps a bowl piled high with Pasta Puttanesca (with a chopped salad on the side, because I do love a salad). But right now, honestly, this Kimchi Fried Egg Rice is my number one favourite dish, the one that I could truly eat every day for the rest of my life. And I'm not even normally much of a fried egg fan …

And the bonus? It is so quick and so easy that I actually COULD eat it every day without a huge drama. Isn't it great when the stars align?

This Kimchi Fried Egg Rice uses cooked grains (I used brown rice), stir-fried with some kimchi, a little soy sauce, a carrot cut into ribbons with a peeler, sliced spring onions and topped with a fried egg. The combination of flavours and textures is out of this world and you can put it together incredibly quickly.

This is a recipe from Elly Pear's lovely book, 'Green' (which I would recommend wholeheartedly) and I have tweaked it just the tiniest bit to take into account a few minor adjustments.

So let's dive into this a little and see if I can tempt you to try my new favourite dish …

Firstly, what is Kimchi?

It's basically spicy, fermented cabbage, kind of like sauerkraut but with Korean flavours such as garlic, ginger and chilli. It is at the core of Korean cooking and gives a real boost of sour, tangy, salty and spicy flavour to all sorts of dishes. Because kimchi is naturally fermented, it's also full of healthy bacteria so it delivers benefits to your health as well as punchy, delicious flavour. When you are buying kimchi, make sure that it's from the refrigerated section of the supermarket because then you know it's alive and it's also less likely to contain nasty preservatives. Kimchi often contains fish sauce, so look carefully at the label if you are a vegetarian.

How do you make this Kimchi Fried Egg Rice?

1. Gather and prepare all the ingredients
2. Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and fry the 2 eggs. Once cooked, transfer them onto a piece of kitchen roll to drain.
3. Add the kimchi, carrot ribbons and white parts of the spring onions to the frying pan and stir fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add the rice and some soy sauce and sesame oil to the vegetables in the frying pan and heat everything through.
5. Divide the kimchi rice mixture between 2 serving plates. Top each with a fried egg and garnish with the green parts of the spring onions and the nori flakes.
6. Enjoy!

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What have I learned about making Kimchi Fried Egg Rice?

• Use precooked grains - this recipe works really well with a 250g (10oz) pack of pre-cooked grains from the supermarket. I tend to always have some cooked brown rice in the freezer (portioned for 2 people), so I used one of those instead.
• Prepare everything before you start cooking - this dish comes together quickly, so be sure to have your ingredients prepared and ready to go before you turn on the heat.
• Cut the kimchi up with scissors - I want to get the benefit of the kimchi flavouring all the way through the dish, so I portion it onto a plate when I'm preparing the ingredients and then use a pair of scissors to cut it up finely. If you like it chunky, you can miss out this stage.
• Kimchi varies in its spiciness - so if you are sensitive to spice, go carefully. For me, the quantity in the recipe is perfect but adjust to suit you.
• The Japanese Nori flakes are really pretty - but I'm not convinced they add a huge amount of flavour. I'm a great believer that garnish is an act of self-love, though, so I'll continue to add them!

So what do you think? Might you give this Kimchi Fried Egg Rice a try? It truly is a winner of a dish - quick, tasty and healthy. Enjoy

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