Kimch Fried Rice with Tocino

This dish is very easy. If you love Kimchi (traditional fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings according to Wikipedia), I’m sure you will love it even more when there are a lot of ways to create dishes with it. Rice for example, can be mixed with Kimchi and it will instantly turn into Kimchi Fried Rice. The dish starts with chopped kimchi, onions, olive oil, Kimchi juice and seasoning (optional) of your choice and lastly, cooked/leftover rice. You can garnish your Kimchi rice dish with spring onions or pork tocino (sweet cured pork as shown in the  image) or any meat of your choice.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup Kimchi, chopped
2 tbsp Kimchi juice
1 tbsp seasoning (your choice)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups rice, cooked
1 tbsp olive oil
Garnish - your choice of garnish may either be sweet cured pork strips, scrambled egg, garlic flakes, spring onions or whatever you prefer.


Procedures:
1. Heat olive oil in a wok. Saute onion and kimchi until the color becomes translucent and the kimchi juice appears.
2. Add you choice of seasoning (optional) and Kimchi juice (from the Kimchi container). Saute well until coated.
3. Add cooked rice and mix well until evenly coated with kimchi juice and chopped kimchi.
4. Garnish with your favorite toppings – meat, fried garlic flakes, spring onions or whatever you prefer. Serve hot.

Pork Meatballs with Sweet & Sour Sauce

If you’re already familiar with the recipe of making meatballs, then it’s the same with these meatballs on the dish. The difference is that they are coated with sweet and sour sauce. The dish is perfect to serve for lunch or dinner. Even kids love eating it.

Ingredients:
For meatballs:
1kg ground pork
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 medium egg
4 pcs spring onion, chopped
salt & pepper
cooking oil

For sweet and sour sauce:
2 tbsp. ginger strips
1/4 cup red bell pepper, sliced
1/4 cup carrots, sliced
1/4 cup pineapple syrup
2 tbsp. cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbsp water
2 tbsp. ketchup
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup pineapple tidbits

Procedure:

For meatballs:
1. In a bowl, mix ground pork,  egg, breadcrumbs, onion, spring onion, carrots, salt and pepper.
2. Make batches of meat mixture by scooping each mixture on a tablespoon and form into balls.
3. Fry until they are brown on all sides. Transfer on a serving plate and set aside.

For sweet and sour sauce:
1. Saute onion, red bell pepper, carrot, pineapple tidbits and ginger on a sauce pan.
2. Add banana ketchup, water, pineapple syrup, soy sauce and cornstarch on the sauce pan. Mix well.
3. Bring to boil until the sauce thickens.
4. Pour the sauce over the meatballs and serve.

Brown Rice Cheesy Roll

Inspired from an ordinary sushi platter, I used brown rice as a base filling along with cooked ham strips and cheese. The seaweed (laver) wrapper is replaced with flattened whole wheat bread (or any bread of your choice).

Obviously, the breading stage is easy. You could use flour, bread crumbs and egg. On the dish above, I use evaporated milk, egg and breadcrumbs. The rolls are then deep-fried to golden brown.

How to cook brown rice? It's simple. 1 cup of brown rice is proportional to 1 - 3/4 cup of water. You can add up to 2 cup water to get a sticky brown rice consistency.  Before turning it to heat, allow the brown rice to soak for 25 minutes to soften its grains.

Ingredients:
1 medium egg, beaten
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup breadcrumbs
5 slices of bread
6-10 cooked ham strips
6-10 cheddar cheese
cooking oil for frying.

Procedure:
1. Flatten the slices of bread with rolling pin. Trim the edges of each bread slices to resemble a perfect square.
2. Spread a tablespoon of brown rice on each bread slice. Arrange cooked ham strips and cheese strips on one side and roll them together with the bread.
3.  On a separate bowl, mix egg and evaporated milk. Dip each bread roll into the milk mixture and coat with breadcrumbs.
4. Deep fry each roll into golden brown. Start with the seam at the bottom to prevent each bread roll from opening up. Drain on paper towels and serve.