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The beauty and the danger of fried rice is that you can use whatever leftovers you have in the kitchen. I say danger because my mom once got food poisoning from eating fried rice when we were in Asia. Lesson learned - only order steamed rice when you are overseas.
This recipe took care of two problems for me. I wanted to try this kimchi fried rice that everyone was talking about and I wanted to use leftover turkey from my Whole Foods Holiday Meal leftovers. I had half a turkey left and just little old me. I also didn't want to suffer the typical leftover turkey fair of repeatedly eating the same meal over and over until it's gone. I wanted something different! (As an aside, my family's traditional leftover turkey meal is turkey tettrazini, which I crockpotted earlier this year.)
In my frig were the two jars of kimchi that I had made about three weeks ago. Here was my chance to actually use the stuff. The result is a very different Korean fried rice with the chili paste as the major flavoring in contrast to the soy sauce Chinese fried rice or the fish sauce Thai fried rice. Because it uses chili paste, it has more bite to it. And because kimchi is cabbage, you take care of the crunchy vegetable component.
Leftover Turkey (or whatever else you got) Kimchi Fried Rice
Note that I add a spread of ingredients so you can go low if you like less of an ingredient or high if you like more.
1 T vegetable oil
3-4 green onions, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/2 - 1 cup kimchi, you may need to chop it down to smaller pieces
2-3 cups cooked rice
1 T chili paste
1 T sesame oil
1/2 - 1 cup cooked turkey, chopped
1 egg
In a large skillet over medium heat, heat oil til hot. Add onions and green onions and cook until the onion is transluscent. Add kimchi and rice. Toss everything together to mix well. Add in chili paste and sesame. Mix thoroughly. Add turkey and toss to mix everything together. Let mixture cook a bit so that the bottom layer gets a bit crunchy, about 5 minutes. Toss again. Make a small whole amongst the rice and break in an egg. Cover the pan with a lid and let the steam cook the egg until the white is set, but the yolk is not completely cooked, about 3 minutes. Uncover and serve immediately.
