Last night I made the Kimchi and Spam Fried Rice recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten Spam before, let alone cook it. On opening the can, it had faint cat food aroma. I tried a piece while dicing it and found the texture remarkably tender. The kimchi might be the only other unusual ingredient here, but kimchi feels pretty well known in the US now. Interestingly, the recipe is about equal parts rice, kimchi, spam, and onion at 340 grams each.

Instead of cooking an egg omelet at the start, Kenji calls for topping this fried rice with crispy fried eggs. I had a pan going on a second burner to fry the eggs while I stir-fried the rice. The Spam gets stir-fried first, “until well browned and starting to crisp.” I found this took a while, and I wonder if it’s difficult to overcook Spam. Squeezed-dried finely diced kimchi and finely diced onion gets added and all of that is stir-fried until softened. This also took a while, given the large volume of ingredients. Once done, the whole mixture is removed to a bowl.

The rice is stir-fried in the empty wok and then pushed to the side so aromatics can be stir-fried. The Spam, onion, kimchi mixture is returned, and then reserved kimchi juice and fish sauce, sesame oil, and cilantro. That all gets tossed together. Kenji then calls for letting it sit to get a crispy crust on the bottom.

Kenji calls for serving with hot sauce, but the fried rice was plenty spicy without it. And it certainly wasn’t bland! Megan and I both enjoyed it. The Spam kept it’s tender interior even with being browned and crisped on the outside. The kimchi, as an ingredient, didn’t stand out. I expect this is due to it’s finely chopped nature. Surely it was a large contributor to the flavor.

I would make this again, but it is a fair amount of work finely chopping the kimchi and the onion.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.