Gyeranbap with Roasted Seaweed and Capers

I love the ubiquity of gyeranbap: If you’re Korean, then it’s likely you already know that mixing fried eggs, soy sauce, and sesame oil into a bowl of white rice tastes bomb. It makes sense that these four basic pantry staples would coalesce into a timeless dish that we eat because our parents ate it, who ate it because their parents ate it, and so on. Also, it’s just so easy: This is the kind of food you make for yourself when you’re hungry but too tired to cook—and perhaps you’re on your own for the evening, so you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen. There are many ways to a good gyeranbap, but my method has been carefully perfected over the years: I like to fry my eggs in the soy sauce and sesame oil you would ordinarily drizzle atop at the end. This way, the sesame oil can act as both cooking fat and seasoning for the rice, and the soy sauce can reduce slightly and lose some of its raw edge, caramelizing around the lacy edges of the fried egg. The result? A darn good gyeranbap.

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

1. Add the rice to a medium bowl and set aside.

Step 2

2. In a medium nonstick skillet, heat the sesame oil and soy sauce over high heat. Crack in the eggs. Reduce the heat if the splatter is too much, but otherwise just cook until the whites have pillowed up, slightly crisped around the edges, and the white area around the yolk is no longer liquidy, about 1 minute (if your pan is hot enough; longer if it isn’t). Also, the soy sauce should have stained the whites and bubbled up, turning into a sticky glaze.

Step 3

3. Slide the fried eggs over the rice, shower with the gim, and dot with a few capers. Season with pepper. Mix everything together with a spoon before tasting. This is where you can adjust for seasoning, adding more soy sauce as needed.