Chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s egg recipe Baked kimchi rice
We may all still be finishing off chocolate eggs from last weekend, but eggs are still where I’m at. With their promise of hope and new life, eggs feel particularly right this weekend.
Lots of us feel a bit like an uncooked egg at the moment: wobbly and fragile, encased in our shell. But now it’s time to crack things open.
We may have got a bit set in our ways over the past year or so, but don’t forget we are as protean as eggs themselves: versatile, able to change and to do things differently. We all just need some heat to do so.
Eggs baked in sticky kimchi rice
I use the Thai Taste brand of sticky rice, which needs only a 30-minute soak and is widely available in supermarkets; if you use a different brand, check the packet for how long to soak it, because some can need as long as overnight. l Soak 30 min; l Prep 15 min; l Cook 35 min; and l Serves four.
For the peppers
Four small- to medium-sized red romano peppers, stalks on l Salt; l 4 large eggs; l 2 tbsp double cream; l 1½ tsp gochujang paste; l 2 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced; l 1½ tbsp (5g) coriander leaves; l ½ tsp toasted sesame oil; l 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted crushed; and
1 lime, cut into wedges, to serve.
lFor the sticky rice
and roughly
125g sticky rice, soaked in cold water for 30 minutes (or longer, depending on brand; see recipe intro); l 100g kimchi, finely chopped; l 1 tsp toasted sesame oil; l 2 tsp gochujang paste; and l Salt.
Turn the oven grill to its highest setting. Cut a slit along down the length of each pepper, making sure they remain attached at the top and bottom, then scoop out and discard the seeds and pith.
Lay the peppers slit side up on a wire rack set over a large tray, grill near the top of the oven for seven minutes, then carefully turn so they are now slit side down and grill for another seven minutes, until the skin is blackened and bubbling in places.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the rack, still slit side down, so any liquid drains away.
Turn the oven to 2200C/gas 7. Drain the rice, then tip into a 24cm ovenproof saute pan for which you have a lid.
Add all the rest of the sticky rice ingredients, 180ml water and a third of a teaspoon of salt, and mix to combine. Bring up to a simmer on a medium-high heat, then turn the heat down low, cover and leave to cook for six minutes.
Once the rice is partially cooked, arrange the charred peppers open side up in a row across the centre of the rice.
Push the peppers down into the rice, then open each one out and season the insides with a good pinch of salt.
Carefully crack an egg into each pepper hollow, so the egg is more or less enclosed (don’t worry if some of the white escapes), cover and bake for 12 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks runny.
While the eggs are cooking, mix the cream and gochujang in a small bowl. In a second bowl, mix the spring onions, coriander, sesame oil and a good pinch of salt.
Drizzle the cream mixture over the eggs, top with the spring onion mix, then sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve hot with the lime wedges alongside. — The Guardian.
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