kimchi fried crispy (nurungji) rice
whoo boy did this past week fly by! is it just me, or is life in general just whizzing by?
last weekend, my friends minji and dylan wedded (congrats again you two!) on an airy grassy field on vashon island with a prime view of mount rainier on the horizon. it was so beautiful that i cried maybe five thousand times. there’s always that one moment though where you completely lose your marbles. for me, it was when dylan poetically closed his vows with something like… “in every reality and every dimension, i would find you and choose you, i love you minji”. t_t
ok i’m crying again thinking about that sweet moment one week later. i don’t know how long dylan’s vows are going to have an emotional chokehold on me, but i mean..olyvia played tears in heaven the other day while we were on our way to eat fried chicken for breakfast, and that song reminded me so much of his vow that i bursted into tears again. omg. why. do i. have. so. many. feelings.
back to the wedding! we drank, ate gumbo and pizza and donuts, danced, chased benji around the field, and watched fireworks at sunset. it was the most extra yet easy-going wedding i’ve ever been to and i couldn’t have imagined minji’s wedding going down any other way. so many happy sighs!
oly and i roadtripped up to vancouver after (or as the cool kids say, van city) to do some major eating and nature queen activities that i’ll share more about later.
i’m in la now spending time with my family one last time before heading off to a new and exciting adventure. it’s been pretty hectic trying to squeeze in work, traveling, getting logistics sorted so i needed to throw something together that was fast, easy, and delicious. all you really need is a jar of kimchi, white rice, and miscellaneous fixings and voila! i’m just realizing that i probably had kimchi bokkeumbap 2-3 times a week growing up because my mom felt this busy, if not busier, raising four kids.
my sister and i would fight over the crispy bits of rice and spam, so with this recipe, i upped the crispy notch by making more nurungji (crisped rice) by patting the fried rice flat on the wok for another 10-15 minutes. hope you enjoy!
xo, christine
Kimchi fried Crispy (NURUNGJI) rice
ingredients
1/2 cup diced spam
2 cup cooked short grain white rice
1 cup roughly chopped kimchi
2 tablespoon minced garlic
3 tablespoon room temp butter
2 tablespoon kimchi juice
1/2 tablespoon three crabs fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 eggs
notes
sauce prep: in a bowl, whisk together kimchi juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil in a small bowl
fried rice:
heat wok to medium-high, sauté spam for about 5 minutes until lightly browned. delicious spam aromas will release and i highly encourage you to hover over the wok, close your eyes, and get high off these spam fumes.
add 1 tablespoon of butter and garlic, sauté for 2 minutes until garlic is lightly browned
add rice, kimchi, and prepped sauce ^ to wok. using a wooden spatula, fold rice into the sauce until evenly coated. stir wok for 4-5 minutes until kimchi has softened
add 2 more tablespoons of butter to wok, pat rice down flat to sides of wok, and set heat to medium. leave on medium for 10 minutes until bottom of rice has lightly browned and crisped. leave for longer if you want extraaaa crisped rice.
fried egg:
in a small fry pan, heat 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil to medium high heat. crack eggs separately onto pan and fry for 2-3 minutes
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