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

Survival Sunday 251: Leftover Rice Eggstravaganza!

In Which I Use Up Some Leftovers!

By now y'all know I like to experiment in the kitchen, especially with leftovers, frying pans, and eggs.

So it shouldn't shock you that I'm coming up with weird egg fried rice knockoffs.

I promise, guys, this tastes really good, so don't be afraid to try it out!

Start with your basic ingredients!

For this Eggy Rice, you'll need:

• Leftover rice
• 2 slices Canadian bacon (sliced into bite-sized pieces)
• 2 eggs
• salt & pepper
• ketchup

If you have veggies, definitely add those too, because this? This is pure cholesterol right now. Oops.

Step 1: Slice everything non-rice-or-egg and fry it on low heat.

It's usually pretty good to start low with stuff like Canadian bacon. It doesn't have a high fat content, so putting it in too hot of a pan will cause smoking and smoking is bad for you. This is also when I'd add any veggies if you've got them - peppers, onions, carrots, even corn and/or peas! This would go well with basically any combo of fryable veggies. You could even use tiny cubes of potato or sweet potato.

Basically, you want these things to get a bit toasted on all portions. Feel free to increase the heat if you feel it's not cooking the way you'd like!

As that's happening, let's focus on our eggy rice!

The next thing you want to do is crack two eggs into the bowl (or other container) of your rice.

And then stir it up!

You want to make this into a slightly frothy, fairly homogeneous concoction, with each grain of rice coated in egg. You also want to season your rice with salt, pepper, etc at this time.

After combining the eggs, rice, and seasoning, you'll be adding your frothy egg mix to the pan with the meat and/or veggies! This can look a bit weird, but bear with it, and immediately begin mixing the egg-rice and veggies/meat together in the pan over low to medium heat!

And yes, it's quite... voluminous!

At this point, squirt a goodly serving of ketchup in there and mix well. You can use any kind of sauce you like (uh.. actually, maybe don't use ranch, that separates under heat and could be kinda gross unless you're using a dry mix...) like mustard, soy sauce, etc. Whatever you think would taste good hot with eggs and rice. I might add a few splashes of soy sauce and some gochujang next time...

Now toss it in a bowl and eat it!

Obviously, you want to make sure that the eggs are cooked if you live in America, since our eggs are washed and therefore more prone to bacterial infiltration than fresher, unwashed eggs in say, Japan. You may find that you prefer to cook this over a higher heat until the eggs are more separated from the rice. You may find that you prefer a slower, lower, creamier version making the dish more like a rice-egg-pudding. However you make this, feel free to leave me a picture in the comments or Tweet at me or something (@TheFilthyCasua8)!

And now, since you've been so patient, here's the video version (lol).

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Survival Sunday 240: Full English Fry Up

In which I attempt to make a tasty English Breakfast

I'm not a very well-traveled person. The most exotic locales I've wandered are Nova Scotia (for a day) and Niagara Falls (also for a day). Besides that' it's mostly just been the occasional trip to Boston with my family. I've never left this continent.

So I've never had a true Full English breakfast.

Which means I don't 100% know what's in one.

I just know what I've seen on the internet, and those components seem to me to be:

• Fried Eggs
• Toast
• Beans
• Tomato
• Mushrooms
• Sausage
• Bacon

Sounded simple enough to me! So I set about trying to make a Full English Breakfast, or, as I'll be calling it from here on out, a Fry-Up.

My first step was cutting and frying my sausage. I've never worked with sausage in a tube before, so that was interesting. I was too impatient to let it thaw completely, so my hand-cut patties were... well, the were a mess. Eventually, though, I got them fried up in my big frying pan and started in on my toast. I nicked a couple of English muffins from my bread cupboard for this, but I'd guess any bread product would work.

I used some of the sausage fat to fry up my "toast". It was lightly buttered, too.

Do not attempt this kind of breakfast if you've got cholesterol issues.

Or if you'd like to have a regular digestion for the next few days.

Regardless, I fried up my toast and stuck it on a plate next to the sausage.

Mmmm.... grease :P

All told, though, it looked really good at this point, and I could've easily just scrambled the eggs and served them like this.

A much more glamorous shot of the toast and sausage.

But I'm nuts, so I decided "time to cook" and got to work on that bacon.

Thick, thick bacon.

I also made sure my other ingredients were close to hand:

A couple of eggs for frying later.

I cut the stem out of the tomato.
I also salted the cut portion generously - which was the only salt I used at all!

The mushrooms were inspected and washed juuuuust before I cooked them!

 Then I turned my pan onto the lowest heat and added my bacon!

Moments after adding the bacon to my pan, this happened!

I let the bacon fry until it looked moderately crispy, then set it aside while I cautiously fried the tomato and mushrooms.

And it was a harrowing experience.

See, when you're cooking with grease, the last thing you ever want to introduce to the environment is water. Tomato is about 90% water, by my estimation. The purpose of the salt (and laying the tomato out on paper towels) was to draw some of the water out and to make the tomato as dry as possible. There was every reason to believe that the tomato would cause the hot bacon fat to explode all over me when I added it.

Thankfully, this was not the case, and I let the tomato and mushroom sizzle together for a while until the mushrooms were soft and the tomato skin began to wrinkle and split. I took out the mushrooms, but I let the tomato keep going and flipped it onto its skin, so the skin became slightly blistered and discolored. When I figured it was done, I took it out and immediately added an egg to the pan.

Also mere moments after being added!

I never raised my pan above a "2" - so, I'd strongly suggest leaving your stove low if you're making one of these. Will it take a longer time? Yes. Will you burn foods as much? Absolutely not.

While I had been preparing most of the meal, I'd emptied a small can of baked beans into a pan on a back burner set to the very lowest setting. While I'm aware that a proper English Breakfast uses beans with some sort of tomato sauce, that's not very common where I live, so baked beans it was!

Sausage, Egg, Toast, and beans!

The overall breakfast was incredible. Each element was tasty on its own (except maybe the tomato, but I'm not a huge tomato fan), but together, they became transcendent. The biggest shock for me was probably the tomato itself, since I figured I'd hate it. I was wrong. When I cut it up and ate the small pieces with beans or sausage, it went from just a tomato to a sliver of bright, acid morning in the slick midnight of the greasy sausage and bacon. The acidity actually helped boost the sweetness from the beans, too!

Actually, I'm pretty sure this meal had all of the flavors: sour and bitter from the tomato (tomato seeds are always bitter to me), sweet from the beans, salty from everything, and umami from the meats and egg!

Also, it was so much food that it couldn't fit on two plates!
My dining companion and I each had a plate with egg, sausage, toast and beans
and we put the bacon and veggies on a third! Good heavens...

So if you're looking to enjoy the food of another land, but you don't have the money to do it, I strongly suggest looking at their culture breakfast first!

That being said, I don't know how England still exists if this is what they eat for breakfast. Even if I'd been a sane person and just had two sausage patties and a couple strips of bacon, the sheer volume of food was overwhelming, and I shudder to think what calories I consumed...

It was 10000000% worth it.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC