Kimchi Fried Rice Is The Answer To All January Culinary Questions

Whatever your January culinary good intentions may be, Kimchi Fried Rice is probably the dish you should start making – as it ticks a huge number of New Year Resolution boxes:

Cutting down on meat? This is a vegetarian recipe.

Doing Veganuary? Make it vegan by leaving out the fried egg.

Cutting down on food waste and trying to go to the shops less frequently? This recipe uses store cupboard ingredients and left-over rice.

Trying to spend less? This is a cheap and cheerful dish, cooked quickly on the stove, so uses less energy.

Trying to include more superfoods in your diet? Kimchi is fermented, full of natural probiotics and great for the gut. It is packed with nutrients and reputed to strengthen the immune system. A plus during a pandemic.

Both kimchi and gojuchang are now widely available at large national supermarkets. But if you can get to your Asian grocery store – you will probably find these ingredients at a better price AND it is a good way to support independent traders.

Kimchi Bokkeumbap

350g cooked white rice

Vegetable oil

1 tin kimchi (160g)

1 small onion, chopped

1 tbsp gojuchang

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 spring onion, finely chopped

1 tsp soy sauce

2 eggs (optional)

Open the tin of kimchi and strain using a sieve over a bowl. Press the cabbage down with a spoon so you collect all the juice. Chop the fermented cabbage into strips.

Add the soy sauce and gojuchang to the reserved kimchi juices, Stir well until the gojuchang has dissolved.

Place a little oil in a wok and heat. Add the chopped onion and the white parts of the spring onion. Fry for a minute. Now place the chopped kimchi into the pan and stir fry for around three minutes until it begins to brown. This will give it a lovely, slightly caramelised taste.

Place the rice into a large bowl and drizzle with the sesame oil. Mix it through using your (very well washed) hands until every grain is coated. This will stop it clumping together during the frying process and will add a toasty note to the dish.

Add the rice to the wok and stir fry well until all the grains are separate. Pour over the kimchi juice mixture and stir fry until all the liquid has been absorbed/evaporated.

In a separate frying pan, fry the eggs until the whites are cooked but the yolks remain soft. I cheat by half filling my pan with vegetable oil and almost submerging the eggs in it, so there is is no danger of “snottiness” in the white, and the yolks become hot but not set. Thriftier types may prefer to use less oil and flick it over the yolk gently.

Serve the rice topped with the fried eggs. Sprinkle them with a little sea salt, if you are a salt monster like me (leave out the eggs if you want to keep the dish vegan). Sprinkle with the spring onion greens – do add some chopped fresh herbs if you have some around.

Colourful Cauliflower Cheese

Cauliflower Cheese is a British classic and was probably the first vegetarian dish I ate as a child.  I loved it, despite a hatred of milk. My mother would coat the cauliflower with a glossy, thick sauce – spiked with dried mustard powder and Cheddar cheese so mature and sharp, it made my tongue prick to taste it.

I remember being horrified by a version served at a pub, with thin, watery sauce, overcooked florets of cauliflower and a scant sprinkling of tasteless, white cheese. Cauliflower Cheese is a simple dish, but like many simple dishes, it is also easy to get wrong.

Over the years I have refined my mother’s recipe, whilst sticking to her strict principles.  I use a mixture of cauliflower and broccoli, and I scatter the top of the dish with sunflower seeds – which add a bit of crunch. I read somewhere that sunflower seeds promote hair growth – so prepare for lustrous locks after eating this.

The main rules are: make sure the florets are bone dry before putting them in the dish; ensure the sauce is really stiff; don’t be stingy with the cheese – tons in the sauce and tons on the top.

Breadcrumbs over the top add a pleasing texture and combat food waste. Pumpkin seeds make a great topping too and deliver a calming dose of magnesium

 

Cauliflower Cheese With A Bit Of Colour

I small head of cauliflower and I small head of broccoli broken into florets

1 tsp dried mustard powder

250g of the strongest Cheddar you can find, coarsely grated

500 ml milk

50g butter

50g plain flour

100g sunflower or pumpkin seeds (or a combination of both)

2 handfuls of breadcrumbs (ideally from stale bread – but don’t dry them out in the oven first -they will cook  along with the cauliflower cheese)

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the florets and cook until al dente. You want them slightly firmer than you would serve at table as a side vegetable

Drain the florets in a colander. Place in a salad spinner and spin gently to remove excess water.

While the cauliflower and broccoli are cooking, make the sauce. Melt the butter over a gentle heat in a medium saucepan. Add the flour and using a wooden spoon, stir it until butter and flour form a thick paste. Keep cooking this mixture over a very low heat until you can’t smell the floury smell any more (sorry – can’t really find a more articulate way to explain it. Get your head over the pan and sniff – you will know when it is done). This usually takes about 5 minutes.

Add the milk in small batches, stirring well. Don’t add more milk until the sauce comes away from the sides of the pan, and the spoon leaves a trail as it stirs. When all the milk has been added, keep cooking until the sauce is thick enough to coat the spoon and not drip. You should think “Oh no, that’s too thick” and then it is right.

Add 2/3 of the cheese to the sauce. Turn off the heat and stir in until melted.

Butter a large baking dish and arrange the florets over the base. Pour the sauce carefully over the florets, being sure to cover them all. Scatter over the breadcrumbs (if using), then the seeds, then finally the remaining cheese.

Bake for around 30 minutes. The top should be bubbling and golden brown. Serve with ready salted crisps to scoop up any leftover sauce.

 

New Year Medicine

 

Oh January! How I loathe you….. Despite my great age, I still struggle with thinking more than one day ahead -so feel utterly depressed by the cold weather, constant advertising about making changes (code for having no fun), and the Christmas decorations coming down and being replaced by absolutely nothing.  It truly feels as if nothing good is ever going to happen again. My great age has taught me, however, that one easy way to lift my mood is by eating delicious, simple dishes -so one of my goals for January is to make sure that I get through the month fuelled by some proper, solid, vegetarian comfort food.

On a recent trip to Georgia, I tried some wonderful home baked breads.  I had the chance to make my own, a simple dough formed into an oval and baked on the side of a large, kiln-like oven (my bread looked a bit like a giant pregnant worm, but tasted great) . We dined like kings during our visit and at every meal freshly baked circles of bread stuffed with cheese, potatoes, meat or beans appeared, to complement fresh vegetable salads, grilled meats and fish. I am not a huge bread fan -I can’t bear French bread, for example -too tough and chewy, but these Georgian breads were quite different.

My favourite was Lobiani, a circle of thin bread concealing a satisfying squashed bean mixture, made from kidney beans cooked with ham and bay leaves. For my vegetarian interpretation, I have made the beans rich and interesting by stewing them with some tomato and mixed spices.  Although I watched many videos explaining how to roll the dough into a beautiful, evenly-filled circle -I still ended up with a slightly peculiar oblong. Normally terrified by the thought of making a yeast dough -this is ridiculously easy and each time I have made it, it rises beautifully and behaves perfectly. Ideal served with salad.

 

January Antidote

Dough

400g strong white flour

2 tsp dried yeast

1 small egg

200 ml hand-hot water

 Filling

1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained (You could cook your own, and add some bay leaves and dried herbs -and possibly some fresh skinned and chopped tomatoes to the mix while they become tender. Using canned beans makes this a much quicker endeavour)

1/2 long shallot, finely chopped

1 crushed garlic clove

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp tomato puree mixed with 1 tbsp water

½ tsp dried herbs

50 ml good olive oil

1 tsp smoked paprika

Place the flour in a bowl with some salt and the dried yeast. Make a well in the middle of the flour and crack the egg into it. Add the warm water and then mix, first with a spoon and then with your hands until it forms a ball of dough. Cover the bowl and put it somewhere warm for about 1 -2 hours, so the dough can rise.

Heat half the oil in a pan and gently cook the onions and garlic until translucent. Add the beans, tomato puree, herbs and spices, then cook over a gentle heat for about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the remaining oil and mash the beans until they form a pleasing mulch. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

When the dough has rested, divide it into two balls. Take one ball and roll it out on a floured board to  form a rectangle about 12 inches by 8 inches. Place half of the bean mix  into the centre, fold the sides of the dough into the centre to make a smaller oblong, then carefully pat it down and stretch it outwards, using your fingers to distribute the filling evenly through the dough. You can finish using a floured rolling pin -and if you have artistic notions -you could try to make it into a neat and elegant circle. Just be careful that the filling doesn’t try to escape. The dough needs to form a good seal around the filling -otherwise the beans will escape and char in the oven.

Place the bread on an oiled baking tray and cook it in the oven at 160 C for 15-20 minutes. It should still look quite pale, but with the faintest freckles of beige on the surface. Rub with olive oil when you remove them from the oven (or melted butter if you can cope with dairy)