Kimchi and Pork Fried Rice

In my lifetime, I have made and eaten Korean fried rice countless times.  In fact, it is a little strange that I've only written about one variation of Korean fried rice on this blog.  But when my mom gave me a jar of her most recent batch of kimchi last week, I had a strong urge to make kimchi fried rice.  Now, I have my own method of making kimchi fried rice but I came across this recipe for Kimchi and Gammon Fried Rice and I decided to adapt it and make a similar version last week.

I started out by making three cups of rice in my rice cooker on Wednesday morning.  I let the rice cool in the rice cooker all day long so that it was cold and less sticky.  On Wednesday night, I gathered the rest of my ingredients:

• 3 cups cold cooked rice
• 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 slices of bacon, cut into little pieces
• 1/4 pound of ham (I got one thick slice at the deli counter), diced
• 1/2 small yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 cups kimchi, chopped
• 2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean spicy bean paste)
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon hot water
• 2 tablespoons kimchi juice
• 1 tablespoon roasted sesame seed oil
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 2 large eggs

I started out by doing a lot of prepping for this dish.  I transferred the cold cooked rice from the rice cooker to a medium-sized bowl.  I used a fork to break the rice up as much as possible and added a tablespoon of oil to help make it less sticky.

I then got to work on the vegetables and roughly chopped up the onion and green pepper.

I then sliced the bacon into bite-sized pieces and cubed the ham.

Next, I cut up the kimchi into bite-sized pieces and also set this aside.

Finally, I mixed the gochujang, sugar and hot water together until the sugar had dissolved and the gochujang had thinned a little.  I added the kimchi juice to this bowl and gave it a stir.

With all of the prep work done, I was ready to get cooking!  Now normally I use my wok for fried rice but I was a little worried about how all of these ingredients were going to fit.  I definitely need to get a larger wok for my kitchen!  I decided to try making fried rice in my Dutch oven since I knew all of the ingredients would definitely fit in this pot.  I warmed up the Dutch oven on the stove and added both the bacon and the ham.

Once the bacon was crisp and the ham was browned, I removed the pork from the pan and set it aside.  There wasn't too much pork fat in the Dutch oven so I added a splash of vegetable oil and then added the chopped onion and green pepper to the pan.  I also minced three cloves of garlic into the pan using my hand press.  Once the onion and pepper softened up, I removed them from the pan and set it aside with the bacon and ham.

I then added the chopped kimchi to the pot and cooked the kimchi until it was dry.  I transferred the kimchi from the pan to the plate with the cooked meat and vegetables.

I added a splash of vegetable oil and then added the rice and the gochujang mixture to the Dutch oven. 

I did my best to mix the rice well in the sauce and also break the rice up free from clumps.  Once this was done, I added the bacon, ham, onion, pepper, garlic, and kimchi back into the Dutch oven and kept mixing everything up.  I also added a splash of sesame seed oil and soy sauce to the kimchi and pork fried rice.

Since I had to keep mixing the rice to keep it from sticking to the Dutch oven, I asked Bret to cook the two eggs on a non-stick frying pan and he cooked them to a perfect over-medium.

I served the kimchi and pork fried rice in a shallow bowl.

The fried rice was topped with the egg.

This is definitely different from the quick kimchi fried rice I usually make but it was probably one of the best versions I've made.  I loved all of the different flavors - from the salty pork to the sweet onion and pepper to the spicy gochujang sauce.  The egg yolk just brought the kimchi and pork fried rice to another level because let's be honest - runny egg yolks makes everything better!

Using the Dutch oven for the fried rice was actually not too bad.  The rice was a bit hard to maneuver at times, so I don't think the rice got the even fried consistency that it would have had if it was cooked in a wok.  Again, I definitely need to get a bigger wok!

Do you ever make fried rice at home?  If so, what kind of fried rice do you make?