This afternoon I went to the first grant-writing workshop of the season, and with it came the usual stomach-churning sense of dreadful intellectual inferiority and self-chastisement for wasted time throughout the year. I know from experience that this will only last a few days, but it’s nasty while it does. Works well to get your productivity skyrocketing, though. I’d felt like I’d already been running on all cylinders for the last few weeks, but the grant panic kept me going for a 13 hour day at uni today, setting analyses running on all cores of my computer and half a dozen nodes of the new cluster as well. It’ll snap my eyes open at 5.30 tomorrow morning too, and have me back on my bike to work by 6.
Anyway, I finally cycled home tonight and made this in about 15 minutes, and god it was satisfying. Crispy and chewy and squishy by turns; sour and hot yet mellow. I’ve got about a kilo of kimchi in the fridge and I can see many variations of this dish in the offing.
2 large golden shallots (or 1 small onion), chopped
sesame oil
2 scallions, green parts, chopped into 2 cm lengths
1 extremely large handful of kimchi, roughly chopped, plus its juice
1 handful cooked chopped silverbeet or other greens
1/2 cup cooked brown rice (leftover rice better than freshly cooked)
soy sauce
salt and pepper
1 egg
In a frypan, heat a dash of sesame oil over moderate heat and add the shallots (you can use peanut oil for this step if you prefer). Cook until softened and coloured, then add the scallions, kimchi and greens and cook another three minutes until the scallions are softened. Add the rice, a little dash of soy sauce, a good drizzle of sesame oil, salt and pepper, and stir to mix well. Spread the mixture over the bottom of the frypan and turn the heat up. Let it cook another few minutes, getting a little crispy, or at least toasty, on the bottom.
At the same time as you’re adding the rice, heat another dash of sesame oil in a small frypan over lowish heat. Crack an egg into the pan and fry it until the white is just cooked but the yolk is still runny.
Once the egg is cooked and the rice is toasted, tip the rice mixture into a bowl and slide the egg on top. Eat at once.