Bacon Kimchi Fried Rice

This isn't the first time I've heard about the much-raved David Chang. If you are thinking David Chang and Momofuku, you are on the right track. Do you know that the brainchild behind Momofuku majored in religion, trained in junior golfing professionally and then worked under a Japanese chef who wore just underpants?

His pork belly buns made him famous in New York. I was like, kong ba pau made him famous??! Kewl!! His recipe is definitely going into my to-try list.

Apparently, Chang has been raving alot about bacon and kimchi - saltyness with smokyness with the fermented sourness which means the perfect combination for the base of this simple fried rice. That got me interested especially since momofuku for 2 is a great fan of his and her fried rice was literally staring at me in the face - EAT ME!!! Ok, I'll cook just that.

This recipe is from David Chang's Momofuku. See my modifications in blue.

 

Ingredients:

4 cups day-old cooked rice (refrigerated overnight) I used brown rice

8 slices of bacon, cut into 1/2- or 3/4-inch pieces

2 cups frozen peas, defrosted (optional) I used a small head of cabbage, chopped

3/4 to 1 cup kimchi, roughly chopped

2 tbsp kimchi liquid from the jar of kimchi

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 large onion 4 shallots, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 to 2 tbsp soy sauce

6 generous dashes of white pepper

2 scallions, finely chopped

2 to 3 tbsp gochujang

About 1 tbsp vegetable or corn oil

Salt, to taste

Method:

 

1. Heat a little vegetable or corn oil in a wok — when it’s sizzling hot, pour in beaten eggs and quickly fry it up, breaking it into small pieces. When eggs are cooked through, remove and set aside in a large bowl. Add peas to the bowl, mix well.
2. Mix together soy sauce, sesame oil, gochujang and white pepper in a small bowl, stir well and set aside.
3. Heat about 1/2 tbsp of vegetable or corn oil in wok until it’s shimmering. Add onions and stir well, cooking until they’re fragrant and soft (but not brown). Using a slotted spoon, remove onions from the wok and transfer to the large bowl with the eggs and peas, setting that aside. (You want to preserve as much oil in the wok as possible.)
4. Heat up wok then add chopped bacon and cook until the pieces are crisp. Remove the crispy bacon with a slotted spoon (again, preserving the bacon fat in the wok) — transfer the bacon to the bowl with the eggs, peas and onions.
5. Heat up the wok again — it should still have a fair bit of bacon fat and oil in it. Once that’s hot, add minced garlic and stir-fry it quickly until fragrant (about 30 seconds to 1 minute on high heat). Add rice and quickly fry it up, breaking up the clumps of rice and making sure garlic is evenly mixed into it.
6. Stir soy sauce mixture well and drizzle that over the rice, mixing it all together very well. Add cabbage and stir well till the cabbage is almost cooked. Then add onion-bacon-egg-peas mixture in the bowl to the rice and stir it together, mixing well.
7. Finally, add chopped kimchi and kimchi liquid, stir together, mixing well. Once the rice mixture is well combined and heated through, turn off heat and cover the lid to allow the brown rice to cook abit more. (Omit this step if you are cooking with normal white rice.)
8. Dish out onto rice plates or bowls, top with a little minced scallion and eat right away.

When I finished cooking the fried rice, Mr G said "you smell like fried rice". Then he literally helped himself to the fried rice, happily eating a huge bowl of fried rice. Yummy, it's spicy and flavourful just the way I like it. I guess that means a big thumbs up from him.

 

 

 

I guess a good alternative would be to use luncheon meat instead of bacon and for non-pork eaters, there's also chicken luncheon meat. There's no limits to what you want to substitute it for.

 

I'm going to submit this to Cook-Your-Books #13 organized by Joyce of kitchen flavours.