"fried rice" news and stories

The best part about Lauren Braun Costello's Edamame Fried Rice is that it's a totally flexible dish. You can add whatever you have on hand -- anything from eggs to chopped pork. Lauren's version is vegetarian, and showcases vibrant green edamame (young soybeans boiled in their pods). It's full of flavor, but much healthier than anything you'll find at a takeout joint.

Get the recipe for Lauren's Edamame Fried Rice.

There are certain things for which a recipe seems silly because it's more of a formula with variables rather than a specific set of ingredients and techniques -- a salad, sandwiches, casseroles, and in the case of Asian cuisine, fried rice. Fried rice is just something you throw together, pulling various ingredients from whatever choices you have in the fridge. You start with a base of leftover rice, then go from there. Meat? Pick one from what you have. Vegetables? Use whatever you have. Seasoning? Well, this one is a little tricky, but it always comes down to your personal preference. Jaden of food blog Steamy Kitchen always uses fish sauce, but I simply splash in some soy sauce, butter, and of course, my favorite hot sauce, sriracha.

Kimchee bok-keum bahp is a Korean home and café food. At home, it's a way to use up kimchee before it gets too ripe to eat (at which time, it gets dumped into a big pot and turned into kimchee jji-gae). "Bok-keum" means sauteed or fried and "bahp" is steamed rice if you're only halfway through Korean 101. So essentially, kimchee bok-keum bahp is fried rice with kimchee, and yes, all those stories about Asian restaurants - today's leftover rice is tomorrow's fried rice - is totally true and totally applies here.

Here's a nasty little sercret - kimchee bokkeum bahp tastes infinitely better when cooked with chopped Spam, but since I don't ever just have Spam on hand and the point of kimchee bokkeum bahp is to use leftovers, I usually use frozen leftover galbee or bulgogi. Of course, leave all of that out and your kimchee bokeeum bahp can be vegetaarian.