Egg rice (Gyeranbap: 계란밥)

The recipe I’m showing you today is so simple! It’s gyeranbap, or egg rice, a healthy and flavorful light meal you can make in no time at all. It’s basically a fried egg and crispy rice, with some soy sauce, sesame oil, and gim (roasted seaweed).

This is my upgraded version of a dish all Koreans know well. I used to make for myself as a busy student on the go, running out the door to school even before my family had breakfast. That classic gyeranbap was just hot rice, a raw egg, and soy sauce. Mixing it all together half-cooked the egg and it totally covered the rice. It was warm and savory and delicious!

This version recreates that taste but the rice is slightly fried and crunchy and the egg is fried, too. You can use a sunny side up egg or over easy, but that runny yolk is very important! Mix it in with the rice, seaweed, soy sauce and sesame oil and enjoy. You can make this if you’re in a rush, or make it on the weekend and enjoy it on the patio. This recipe serves one but you can easily multiply it to serve as many as you want, just make sure everybody has their own plate to enjoy it on.

Ingredients

Serves 1

• 1 cup warm cooked rice
• 1 large egg
• 1 sheet of toasted seaweed paper (gim), crushed
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
• soy sauce
• toasted sesame oil

Directions

Prepare the rice

1. Use both hands to form the rice into a ball, then shape it into 3 to 4 inch wide disc, like a hamburger patty.
2. Heat up a skillet over medium high heat. Add 2 teaspoon cooking oil. Put the rice on the skillet and cook for a few minutes until the bottom turns crispy.
3. Turn it over and cook it for a few more minutes until both sides are nice and crispy.
4. Spread the crushed seaweed on a large serving plate. Add the rice to the center of the seaweed.

Prepare the egg

1. Heat up the pan again.
2. Drizzle 1 teaspoon cooking oil in the pan and swirl it around a bit. Crack the egg into the pan and cook for 1 minute until the white turns opaque. Turn it over with a spatula and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute until you can pick it up on the spatula without breaking the yolk.

Put it together

1. Remove the egg from the heat and put it on top of the rice. Sprinkle sesame seeds and drizzle soy sauce and sesame oil over top to your taste.
2. Serve it with kimchi or any vegetable dish. When you eat it, break the yolk into the rice with your spoon, and mix it in!