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 252: Parmesan Spaghetti Ramen

In Which This Is My Last Noodle of 2019!

Well, here we are, two days out from the end of the decade. It's been a wild year, guys!

I figured we'd round out the year with the last of our East-Meets-West noodles - a spicy Parmesan pasta! This came from another one of our Umai Crates, and we had very high hopes for it, since the last few Italian-inspired bowls had been so freakin good. This was a pretty standard setup, too, which was good, because I was already tired from putting together Christmas gifts and we made this a couple of weeks ago!

As you can see, it warns you that it's spicy, but it's also welcoming and cute.
Very Japanese.

It's a 3-minute bowl, so I pulled out the packets and poured in the hot water and let it sit for the full three minutes.

Which was just enough. If you like your pasta very soft, go for 3:30.

Since we're al dente people, it was time to drain the pasta and add the flavor packets! I was at a loss at first as to what the green packet could have been, but that's because I don't read instructions very well, lol.

On the left is the tasty spicy tomato sauce in the red packet.
The green packet on the right was the Parmesan cheese!

A word from the wise: Don't fiddle with your lid too much before you drain the water, because it will detach too much, and then you'll be constantly fighting to keep the noodles in your bowl without scalding your fingers.

Overall, I'd say it was worth it, though!

Almost finished! Look how quickly that cheese started melting into the noodles!
Seriously, there was about 50% more of that before I picked up the camera!

A closeup so you can see just how good this looked...
Or you would see that if the color balance wasn't bad on my phone...

I should probably mention that we had this with some leftovers from a really great Christmas party we'd gone too earlier that week (the day before, in fact!)

Since there was a fair amount of food in the leftovers box, we picked out some of the choicest sausages and added those to our spicy Spaghetti Ramen experience!

10/10 do recommend!

In the end, the sauce was just tomato-y enough to get the tomato-ness of it, but not so much so that it overpowered the meat, noodles, and spiciness! Actually, I was unimpressed with the spice-factor at first, but it was a sneaky spice that crept up on you the more you ate it. I really like this bowl, and I thought that, while there could always have been more cheese, what we got was really nice and went well with everything.

Overall, I'd have to say that this particular fusion was not only successful, but it's something I'd buy regularly if it was available locally! Really nice.

That'll about do it for me, today, guys.
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 249: Bibim Men!

In Which I Try Some Instant Bibim-Men!

Some friends dropped off a package of Instant Bibim Men, and I was eager to try it. What's Bibim Men? Well, imagine if you took Bibimbap and Ramen and made them have a baby.

What's Bibimbap?

IT'S HEAVEN IN A BOWL!

This is Bibimbap

Korean cooking has mastered the art of "I have it, so I'll eat it" in a way few cultures have quite approached. Bibimbap is basically several veggies and/or meats, stir-fried, and placed in a bowl. A runny fried egg is placed on top. There might be rice or noodles on the bottom. And then there's the sauce.

Korean sauces are notoriously delicious. Korean barbecue is some of the best on earth, so of course I'm going to love a Korean breakfast with a barbecue-style sauce that you pour on top!

And then there's Bibim Men.

See, Bibim Men takes that sauce and pours it onto ramen. Perfection!

But perhaps not enough for a single meal.
We had some yuzu soba left over from an Umai Crate, and had that as well!

Unfortunately, it being winter, veggies are harder to get hold of (plus, I was feeling lazy), so I had some leftover chicken that I added to the mix.

The Chicken.

I boiled the chicken and noodles together - can't remember if I did an egg, but I don't think I did? I should've. Regardless, I boiled the precooked chicken to heat it up.

It smelled great!

I also used the chicken noodle water to reconstitute the soba, but that's not really important right now.

The Bibim Men Sauce.

Once the noodles were cooked, I drained all the water and put all of the noodles and chicken in a bowl, where I eagerly snipped open the sauce packet and began to pour it out.

Apologies for the autopsy photo quality, but it was dark in the kitchen...

Thick, dark, fragrant sauce spiraled down onto the bed of noodles and chicken and my eyes widened significantly as I took it all in. Oh. My. God.

This is an amazing dish.

It's so amazing that, yeah, it didn't even quite make it to the table to get photographed before we dove in!

The sauce is sweet, spicy, savory - delicious. It buoys the noodles from bland to grad and pairs so perfectly with chicken that it was as though it was preordained! Honestly, I'd pay money to eat this at a restaurant, it's that good. I can only imagine what a 100% home-made version would taste like, and that's without veggies. Ideally, I'll get more and make it with bean sprouts, some stir-fried spinach or collards, carrots, mushrooms, peppers, etc. And I'll put the over easy egg on top and let the yolk soak through.

Just thinking about it is torture.

And yes, the soba was never more than an afterthought, which is a pity.

Because yuzu soba is always good.

If you've been wondering what yuzu tastes like, it's basically what happens when all the citrus fruits get together and create a Frankenflavor. It's... citrus. There's not really any other way to describe it. It has the freshness of grapefruit, the zing of lemon, and the mellow juiciness of oranges, and it's delicious. It pairs so well with the earthy flavors of a chicken-tinged soba broth and the thin-but-firm noodles. Definitely worth making up, but it does pale by comparison to the Bibim Men, which was the absolute star of the show.

I think that'll do it for me today.

I've made myself hungry :P

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 235: Noodles and Rice

Spicy noodles and tasty salmon rice courtesy of Umai Crate

I think that Umai crate has been one of the coolest things introduced to the world since pre-sliced bread. I know that, for those of you living in larger metropolitan areas, the allure of multiple types of instant noodles and side-dishes is less impressive, but I live in a Maruchan town. Seriously. It's hard to find different kinds of noodle around here. Like - nearly impossible...

So to have noodles from Japanese stores appear on my doorstep every month is a blessing.

The closest legit Asian grocery stores are about... 80 miles away. And I cannot drive. And I have no money. This is the best way for me to get good noodz!

Inadvertent advertisement aside, however, here are two different dishes I tried from Umai Crate this month... uh... last month, technically. Happy September?

(ooh, I'm gonna have to start planning for Falloween 2019!)

I'm not 100% sure what this one was called, but it's Nongshim.
They make the blast-your-face-off spicy Shin Cups.
I knew what I was getting into.

Look, I like spicy food. I really enjoy having that fiery heat toasting my lips and draining my sinuses for hours afterwards. Nongshim foods have tended to hit the extreme upper limit of my capacity for capsaicin. That being said, I had a good feeling about this interesting setup:

You don't cook the noodles in the tray - it's not sturdy enough for boiling water.

Red can be very alarming color to see in foods. In meat, it tends to mean that it's improperly prepared. In vegetables, that means beets (which I don't really like, sorry). In noodles, it means you're going to lose some tastebuds to the heat. And boy, was this a red dish.

I don't know exactly what this says, but... I'm guessing it says "liquid fire".
Because that's what was in it.
Culinary plasma.

The noodles were fairly unassuming - dried and nestled together in their pretty little puck.

A faint, brown rice-y smell rose from them that I found incredibly pleasant.

After preparing (and cooling) the noodles, I was left with a decent tangle of noodz in the bottom of my enormous dish.

They were so slippery that I almost lost them down the sink while rinsing them!

And of course, then it was time to apply the death sauce. I say this because these noodles, man...

I mean, look at how red that sauce is in there. You know that's some prime peppery hotness.

I loved these noodz to death. They nearly killed me, since I was an idiot and ate them in the middle of a week-long acid reflux attack that kept me up for several nights, but they were delicious. The heat felt cold going down my throat. It was like swallowing dry ice (which I DO NOT RECOMMEND). Then the heat would blossom up and set my lips on fire. I think it may have actually given me chemical burns on my tongue, because there are some smoothed-out patches now that weren't there before... 10/10 would eat again. Perfect on a toasty day.


About a week after the noodles, however, I had some leftover rice at home. It was just some long grain white rice that had been boiled and buttered and left in the fridge for a couple days, but that didn't matter to me. I had plans.

Plans that only used one of those bags. The one with the scale/wave pattern.

Umai Crate occasionally sends more than just noodles, after all. Sometimes you'll get a cute kitchen sponge or egg ring. Sometimes it's a spoon or chopsticks. Sometimes you'll get spices or furikake or things you can add to rice!

This time, we had a bag with dried salmon, seaweed, and green tea. I wasn't sure how I'd like it, since I'm not really into green tea (I love the smell, but sometimes I can't handle the flavor). I also wasn't sure how it would go with the butter on the rice.

We were also going to attempt to add the shiso furikake in the smaller purple bag,
but we decided at the last minute to stick with the salmon stuff alone.

I boiled up some water in a kettle, then sprinkled the salmon furikake stuff all over the bowl of rice. I didn't even heat the rice up. I figured boiling water would do the trick.

I wasn't wrong, either.
It warmed up perfectly.

You can't really see the salmon in that shot, but it reconstituted really well. The overall effect of the topping and the buttered rice mixing with the water was marvelous - the rice became more tender, the salty flavor of the butter and the salmon and the furikake seaweed was evened out by the creaminess of the butter, and everything tasted wonderful. There was a faint green tea undertone that was actually addictive, even for me, a tea-hater.

10/10 would eat again. Can't wait for more leftover rice!!!

So that's all from me this week. Sadly, I haven't made a video this week, so we'll have to hope that I get on that for next week :P

Go Enjoy Something!
FC