Midnight kimchi fried rice for Kiki

“Kimchi fried rice, to me, is a taste of everyday love that feels as safe and comforting as a mother’s hug and as familiar as one’s mother tongue in the foreign city. It is also the dish I often think I’d like to share with my daughter one day, to feed her midnight hunger; standing quietly in my softly lit kitchen, hovering over the hob side by side, we would frivolously dig straight in for the scorched rice at the bottom of the pan, while frantically blowing our mouths to temper the heat (both temperature and chilli) as we both know, us Koreans like to eat our food steaming hot. [I sometimes wonder, as ordinary as it seems, if something like kimchi fried rice is what she might reach out for when she misses her home, and become the bridge that enables her to preserve her Koreanness.] I use spicy Calabrian cured pork spread, nduja, here, which quite conveniently allows me to scoop it straight from the pack without fuss. Melted into softly fried kimchi, within minutes it unleashes the heat, and the buttery texture of nduja really mellows into the soured kimchi to bring lip-smacking unctuousness. I like to use a skillet or frying pan (skillet) instead of a wok to yield the wonderfully crispy scorched rice that crusts at the bottom of the pan. Top with a crispy olive oil fried egg with an oozy golden yolk, it becomes the binder and relief that offset spiciness. Eat it straight from the pan. ”