Survival Sunday 304: Kimchi Stirfry

In Which I Eat The Leaf

We received a lovely Kimchi Stir Fry kit in one of our recent Umai Crates, and since both of us really, really like kimchi, it seemed like we should get on that.

But we didn't.

For weeks.

Because 1) I'm lazy and 2) we kept forgetting to pick up kimchi.

But then we got the kimchi, some bacon, and some scallions, so I set to work preparing our stirfry!

The stirfry in question.

The prepackaged items included some delicate vermicelli noodles and a small packet of what we were informed was some kind of gochujang sauce. Easy enough, right? It's all the same spices as you'd get in kimchi, mixed with noodles.

But we wanted more than clear noodles in a rich red sauce (though that sounded delicious).

It also came with "instructions"...

The directions in the actual booklet were confusing and almost no help at all. See, we had been under the impression that the bag contained some kind of kimchi, but there wasn't any. It doesn't even suggest kimchi under the "try it with" section. Not very promising. Also - the instructions call for sesame oil (not included or suggested) and heating everything over medium which... uh... that doesn't always work.

So instead, I sliced up some bacon into about one inch chunks, my awesome partner chopped up some green onions and ran out to grab some kimchi (really, really good kimchi) and we decided to wing it.

Choppy choppy

A locally made kimchi, no less!

So I followed the instructions and grabbed our sesame oil... it's spicy so I usually proceed with caution.

It's really good, though...

 I dumped a small amount in a frying pan and got ready to make up the rest of the food.

Spicy sesame oil always looks vaguely horrifying in a clean frying pan...

Once we got the stovetop up to temp, we chucked in the kimchi, green onion/scallion, and bacon to fry together. Here's where you may be guessing my first problems arose:

I'm a big weenie and I'm scared of grease burns.

To be clear, I still cooked with it (though I had to hand it off in the end for the final few minutes because it was spattering me and I was trying not to freak out) and it was delicious. If you don't like cooking bacon, though, stick with the pre-cooked stuff. It's still delicious (it's bacon, after all) and it's still pretty dang awesome. I haven't cooked turkey bacon before, so I don't know if it has a similar issue with spattering.

Experiments for other times lol.

While the bacon was rendering and the oil was coating everything and the liquid was cooking out of the kimchi, we added both the sauce and the noodles. We didn't presoak the vermicelli - we just let it soak up the in-pan goodness. We didn't even have to add water!

Maybe if we got it again, I would add a little water, though, to help deglaze the bottom of the pan. Still, it came up well after a brief soak, so don't be too concerned over your pan's well-being.

Eventually, the noodles were soft, the bacon was cooked, and the kitchen smelled like gochujang and happiness, so we dumped it all in a bowl and took it back to the table. No chopsticks here - we were going for the four-pronged food shovel one might call a fork. Why? Because we were hungry and didn't want to spend forty minutes clumsily trying to wield chopsticks.

No matter how many times I use them, I still struggle for the first five minutes as my Irish-American fingers confusedly stumble around.

And who wouldn't want to just shovel this into their face?

If I were to try this again, from the comfort of my own home, this is what I'd do:

INGREDIENTS:

• Kimchi
• Either vermicelli or wide rice noodles (like for pad thai)
• Bacon (precooked or non-pork)
• Green onion/Scallion
• An Egg
• Sesame oil (plain)
• Gochujang and/or sriracha sauce (probably both)
• Fish sauce
• Soy sauce
• Peanuts and/or sesame seeds
• Possibly peanut butter?

TO MAKE:

1. Chop up any big ingredients (bacon, scallion). If using pad thai noodles, soak them in hot water until soft.
2. Dribble a bunch of sesame oil in the bottom of a fairly good-sized pan, turn heat to medium or medium-high
3. Start cooking the kimchi, protein, and green onion/scallion together in the oil
4. As the pan-fried foods start to look cooked, add your egg. You can either scramble it ahead of time or just let the scrambling happen as you move things around in the pan.
5. Start adding sauces, buttercup. Let your heart be your guide. Do you like fishier flavors? More fish sauce. Don't like fishy flavors? Less fish sauce. Want to have your sinuses pressure washed? Add more gochujang and/or sriracha. Add soy sauce if you think there's not enough lubrication. Add peanut butter at this stage if you want a  more pad thai-like experience.
6. Add them noodles and stir everything together until either a) you can't stand to look at it anymore and just have to eat it or b) things are starting to look 100% done and you want to eat it.
7. Plate that goodness and sprinkle on some crushed peanuts or some sesame seeds for garnish. Maybe a few fresh scallions or whatever if you're feeling extra fancy/are serving this on a date.
8. That pan's probably pretty crusty right now. Go soak it while you eat. Future dishwasher you will thank hungry-but-sensible you. I promise.

So that's my idea for next time I'm craving a kimchi stirfry!

How about you guys? Have you ever bought a convenience food and realized you could make it yourself? Do you have any suggestions for future recipes? Let me know!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC