Fresh.

I never take for granted how lucky I am to live on a farm. I have chickens, and I have land, and I have passion that drives me to experiment with the food one can obtain on the farm. Not that we are farmers. We have a few egg layers, and we have a small garden. There are a few things that are well worth growing if you have the time, the space, and the inclination. I am not talking about money, I am talking about quality that, really, money cannot buy.
Locally-sourced ingredients are such a buzzword today that even the odious Mark Zuckerberg is doing it. But self-sourced ingredients are a thing unto themselves. There are certain things you can grow yourselves that deserve to be explored, analyzed. And, finally, appreciated, savored, remembered. I will run through some but not all of these and give them criminally short descriptions, but I invite you to try each of them, not together, but one at a time.

Eggs. Fresh eggs are markedly different from their supermarket counterparts. The flavor is very eggy. The best phrase I can think of to describe same-day eggs is "egg to the egg power." When you really want the flavor and texture of eggs to come through, as in a souffle, you need to source really fresh eggs. For those of you who live in towns and cities, if you drive to an egg-producing farm they will sell you a dozen eggs straight off the line for a supermarket price, and they will be incredibly delicious.

Lettuce. These are easy to grow from seed but can be highly fragile if weather conditions are not right. Experiment with different kinds of lettuces: watercress, Bibb, spring greens, arugula. See what grows well. You'll find that lettuce freshly picked from the garden needs almost nothing. A little oil and/or vinegar, a very light peppery vinaigrette, but very little. The greens themselves when fresh have such flavor that you won't want to mask it.

Potatoes. Now, these are a bit difficult but well worth the time. Potatoes have to be buried at the right depth and in the right soil, and the soil must be mounded around them as they grow. But, when they are ready, look out. I have found that freshly dug potatoes are so delicious it is almost impossible to keep them in the refrigerator--they are eaten immediately. Preferably baked and topped with a freshly laid fried egg. You think I am joking?

Peas. Another incredibly flavorful vegetable that is absolutely top-quality when fresh. This is something you will never eat in even the finest restaurants.

Beets. For some reason, beets lose a lot of their quality once they're out of the ground. See Potatoes. I used to hate beets: all the beets I had been served tasted like dirt or salty pickling liquid. But fresh dug beets, covered in oil and roasted, are simply amazing.

Lastly, milk. In Denmark they sell fresh sweet unpasteurized milk even in the 7-11, called "Sødmælk." In the USA, most dairy farms are required by law to pasteurize their milk, which largely destroys the taste. If you encounter a small dairy farm that is allowed to sell unpasteurized milk, it is well-worth the premium price. They are also likely to make some fantastic unpasteurized cheeses, so check those out as well.

Roasted Whole Chicken with Fingerling Potatoes

A chicken is a wonderful gift of nature, and no part of it needs to be wasted. It simultaneously provides high-quality, lean protein for a meal, a cherished treat for dogs and cats (the organs, cooked and chopped, added to pet food), and excellent, low-sodium chicken stock for other downstream uses. Here's our well-tested method for preparing crispy-skinned roast chicken that you can accomplish in about 90 minutes. It is very easy to execute and easy to teach.Remove the organs from the cavity, rinse and dry the bird with paper towels. Salt and pepper the inside of the cavity well. Cut a lemon in half and stuff both halves into the cavity. Rub olive oil into the skin all over; if you have time, loosen the skin over the meat and drizzle olive oil underneath the skin to help in crisping. Salt and pepper all over, and also season with onion powder. Place on a roasting rack inside a roasting pan and bake in a medium oven (350 F; 175 C) for about an hour, until the skin is nicely browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool under a foil tent for 15-20 minutes.
While the bird is cooling, make some gravy from the pan drippings. Pour off some of the drippings, reserving a few tablespoons in the roasting pan. Heat the pan on the range top with a little flour, stirring until the flour mixture begins to brown. Add a cup or so (250-400 mL) of chicken stock and work to incorporate all the flour and browned bits into the gravy with a whisk. When the gravy is thickened, pour into a serving vessel.
To carve the bird, First cut the limbs off at the joints with a large and sharp knife. After a little practice at this you will remember exactly where the joints are like a surgeon. Remove the legs and the wings. Remove the thighs. Cut on either side of the pectoral bone and down underneath the breasts, removing them whole, one at a time, with the skin on. Now, for each breast, cut crosswise into four or five chunks, keeping the skin on. Now, the person carving always has his first choice of the choicest parts of the chicken, and they happen to be parts that most people wouldn't eat if they were served on a platter. These are the dark meat "medallions" on the back of the bird near the thighs as well as the whole tail. If you don't remove these they will certainly add a lot to your stock later.
We like to serve this with brown barley rice and roasted new or fingerling potatoes, which can be baked right along with the bird in a foil pouch or in a separate dish. Cut the potatoes into bite size pieces (no need to peel), drizzle with olive oil and season with Herbes de Provence. Add and remove them right along with the chicken; you can use the same oven.
After the chicken is carved, you can start a stock by immersing the carcass in cold water, adding a little of the trinity onion, carrot, and celery, and BTBRTS (bring to boil, reduce to simmer). If you have them handy, add some parsley, sage, bay leaves, and/or peppercorns to the liquid. Simmer until you're ready for bed, strain the stock and cool in the refrigerator overnight. This can be frozen if needed, but we usually use it right up in something else. This will be low in salt (but not zero; the bird was salted), so you'll likely have to adjust for salt in your downstream use.

Bread

On this blog we're all about the quick. The ratio of deliciousness to time must be maximized. So if I tell you I make fresh bread every day, and I make it the French way, baguettes, ficelles, and boules, you'd say, "I don't have time." Of course. I never had time to make bread either. But I discovered a book that revolutionized my bread baking. I found out that a wet bread dough can keep for a week or two in the refrigerator. So all we have to do is make a relatively wet dough, and then we can take a bit of this dough any time we want some fresh bread and bake it for 20 minutes. For this to be professional-good you'll have to invest in a $25 baking stone. The dough recipe is a famous ratio of 6-3-3-13. This means six cups tepid (not hot) water, 3 T yeast (I use regular old Fleischmann's Dry Yeast), 3 T kosher salt (or a bit less according to taste, but you need some salt), and 13 cups of flour. Note that this makes enough dough to capsize an Italian cruise ship. You can cut the recipe in half or in quarters easily, and it works just as well. Get a vessel for your dough that will fit in the refrigerator and will close up, but not tightly. You don't want explosions.
Place all ingredients in the dough vessel and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until you have a very wet, sticky dough. If required, wet your hands very well and incorporate the ingredients that remain. Don't knead--it's not kneaded. OMG I crack myself up. Place the vessel in a quiet, not cold, place and allow to rise for a while. It can rise for 2-5 or more hours. After a while (I have left it overnight on more than one occasion) it will increase in size by double or more. Use immediately or place in the refrigerator until needed. This whole step is best done on a weekend when you have time.
Now comes the quick and easy part, the busy executive bread baker part. When you want some fresh bread, take the dough vessel out and flour your hands well. The wet dough is very sticky. Grab a big piece of dough and tear it off the mass of dough, using a bread knife to saw a quantity of dough about the size of a grapefruit, more or less depending on how much you are making. Make sure your hands stay well floured. Take your dough ball and stretch the top around both sides to the bottom. Turn the ball a quarter turn and repeat. Repeat until you have "stretched" four times and you have a nicely round ball of dough. You may use this ball to make a "boule," or you may elongate it to make a baguette or even a ficelle. Keep your hands well floured and shape the dough into the type of bread you want. Place this dough on a piece of parchment paper on a pizza peel or cookie sheet. Allow the dough to rest for about 20-40 minutes while you prepare dinner. Turn the oven on to 450 F (220 C) and place the stone in the oven. I happen to have one of my commercial ovens dedicated to bread baking with a stone always in place. Goody gumdrops.
When the oven is ready you'll see that the dough has risen a bit and maybe flattened a bit. Not to worry, it will spring up in the heat (called "oven spring"). Get a cup of plain water and brush some water over the surface of the dough. If you are making a boule, dust it with flour, otherwise, do not. Now take a bread knife and slash the dough like you have seen on finished bread loaves; four or five slashes on a bias for a baguette, three across for a boule, etc.
Carefully, take the pizza peel or cookie sheet and slide the parchment plus bread dough onto the hot stone. Now, this is important. On a lower rack, place another pan with some ice cubes (maybe 2-4 cups of ice) to provide steam. Close the door and allow to cook for 15-20 minutes. After a while, check on the doneness by looking at the color of the crust. Since the dough is so wet, it can get quite brown and the inside will not be too dry. When finished, remove the bread and place onto a cooling rack to cool completely (although SOME PEOPLE will wish to make slices of still-warm bread and add butter).
Note that this recipe is very simple and minimally time consuming, but only once you get the hang of it. Prior to getting the hang of it, you may make several awful loaves of bread. All I can suggest is, keep plugging away because mastering this technique will change your cooking life. Lastly, I don't wash my dough vessel, a 9 liter food storage bin with a lid, I simply add more dough ingredients when it is too low to make another loaf and I mix the old in with the new. After a few rounds of this the dough definitely takes on a deeper sourdough flavor that adds quite a lot.
Good luck, good patience, and good eating. Oh and the book is "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Hertzberg and Francois.

Quick Lasagna

A perennial favorite in our house is Mette's lasagna. Now, as a Texan of Germanic descent and a Dane, we have to say that Italian food is not our specialty, and this recipe will certainly offend someone who is very proud of their authentic lasagna from Napoli or wherever. This is not a substitute for the thousand-year-old classic as made in Italy, for which we have high respect. But this is a quick and delicious version of the classic. It calls for oven-ready lasagna which is used dry, jars of pasta sauce, and bagged shredded mozzerella. It is the version of lasagna for the busy executive. You may put it together the night before and refrigerate before baking it in the oven after work, or you can go from supermarket bag to table in under two hours. The keys here to flavor development are to use the requisite amount of meat and to use a slightly spicy sauce. We've never heard a negative review. So far that is.
Ingredient list:
8 oz Oven-Ready Lasagna; things certainly got easier when that was invented
2 quart jars Spicy Red Pepper Tomato Sauce; or whatever you like that adds a bit of spice
2 cups whole milk ricotta
4 cups whole milk mozzarella, shredded or sliced (if fresh); uncharacteristically we prefer bagged
1 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated on a Microplane; get a Microplane if you lack one. Seriously.
1/2 pound sweet and/or hot Italian sausage
1/2 pound ground beef or ground turkey
1/2 onion, sliced
1/2 bell pepper, sliced
Garlic cloves, minced

Heat some olive oil in a large (12-inch) skillet and saute onion and bell pepper along with 2 garlic cloves until onion begins to brown slightly. The sweetness of the peppers and onions are a great addition, but the dish still works without them. Remove sausage from casings, crumble and brown in the same skillet along with a half pound of hamburger meat or turkey depending upon your preference. Once meat is cooked and onions have turned translucent, add enough sauce to cover all ingredients and stir well.

In a lasagna pan, spoon sauce into bottom until covered. Place oven-ready dry lasagna in a layer over the sauce; spread a layer of ricotta over the lasagna noodles. Spoon meat sauce over this layer and then sprinkle liberally with mozzarella and Parmigiano cheese. Next layer with lasagna noodles, then ricotta, meat sauce, and finally cheeses. Continue with layers until four full layers are complete. Add some additional cheese to the very top. Cover pan with foil. At this point the pan may be refrigerated overnight or baked immediately.

Bake in a medium (350 F) oven for one hour. After an hour, remove the foil and return the pan to the oven. After another 5-10 minutes, or until the cheese on top is browned, remove and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Slice and serve with a fresh salad, garlic bread and a glass of red wine. This is one of those dishes that gets much better the next day so save some to enjoy for lunch or dinner tomorrow!

Comments welcome, as we know we can always improve upon an attempt at a classic. Just think about time constraints.

Stuffed Pork Loin

This is another fantastic meal for the autumn-winter months and a real Danish staple. I have noticed that pork center cut loins are often on sale, and they make excellent roasts. One of our favorite things to do with a pork loin is to stuff it with two out of three items: apples, prunes, and/or onions, whichever we happen to have available. Then we brown it on the stovetop and finish in the oven. There are two tricks to stuffing the pork roast. One is to slice it carefully and in such a way that it can be stuffed and rolled back up like a pinwheel. The other is to know how to tie up a roast. There are two general ways of tying a roast, and believe me, the roast needs to be tied up. One is to use several short lengths of twine and tie a loop around the roast every inch or two (3-5 cm). The other is to use a single long piece of twine and tie the roast using surgeons' knots and without cutting the twine. I will discuss neither this evening but you can look them up on the net. The method of tying using a single piece of string is best learned about in leisure and practiced several times before you need it. Once you get it you will not forget it, and it will serve you well. Recipe:

Rinse off a 2-3 lb (about 1 kg) pork roast and season it well, especially with salt. Now place the pork down on a cutting board and slice into it parallel with the board and about a third of the way up the roast, so that one third is below the knife and two thirds is above. Using a heavy and sharp knife cut along flat, parallel with the board until about an inch (2 cm) from the end of the roast. Open up the roast like a book. Now cut back toward yourself, separating the top third from the middle third, stopping about an inch from the end, and open the roast up like a folded letter. At this point it should be flat and about an inch thick. Season well and drop small-diced apples, prunes, and/or onions onto the surface of the meat, pushing them in. Now take the edge of the roast and roll it back up like a pinwheel. Tie the roast well using butcher's twine until it will hold its shape during cooking. If there is more filling that did not stay in the roast, mash it into the ends. Allow the roast to rest in the refrigerator if you have time before cooking.

Melt some fat or butter in a large, oven-proof skillet (such as cast-iron) over medium-high heat. Add the roast and cook until caramelized (browned) well on one side. Turn onto a different side and repeat, making sure to brown all sides as well as the two ends of the roast. Once it is browned all over, place the pan with the roast into a pre-heated oven at 350 F (150 C) and cook for about an hour, or until cooked through to an internal temperature of 165 F (about 70-75 C). Remove the roast from the pan, place it on a clean cutting board, and tent it with foil for about 10 minutes.

Use a heavy knife (e.g. a 10-inch Wusthof) to slice the pork roast into 1-inch (2-3 cm) slices. Serve one or two slices on each plate with some mashed potato, mashed rutabaga, or red cabbage. After you get the hang of this it will become a favorite recipe.

Zojirushi

Movie critic Roger Ebert once said famously in a NY Times piece that a rice cooker is the only kitchen gadget you'll ever need. I remember reading this in the Sunday Magazine and being intrigued. I never really got the knack of cooking rice well in a pot, and I had slipped into buying not just the horrible Uncle Ben's but some kind of microwave rice packets; I hope those are no longer sold. And forget brown or wild rice--it just takes forever. So I thought seriously about buying a rice cooker.
When I was at Michigan a group of us got together and hired a sushi chef to come over to one of our apartments and show us how the Japanese householder makes sushi--more on that in a future post. It was eye-opening in many ways, and I remember he cooked Nishiki rice in a Zojirushi rice cooker. It turns out that the Zoji is famous in Japan, they are quite expensive there, and I don't think the company makes anything else but rice cookers. So, when I could afford it, I got a Zojirushi Rice Cooker, model NP-HBC10.
I have to say, I have not been disappointed. It cooks rice of any kind absolutely perfectly, and now we routinely make Texmati Royal Blend brown rice with several meals. But, as Ronco says, that's not all! The machine has a "mixed" function which effectively cooks pretty much anything. One of my favorite tricks on a cold weekend day is to throw in some Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix, some raw ground beef, and some water and set it on "mixed" and go away to do farm chores. When I come back in cold and tired, a perfectly cooked meal is waiting. It's the crock-pot of the 21st century. Better, really, because it keeps the rice hot for days (literally) without burning it or drying it out. This really is one of my favorite appliances.
Ebert may well be right, and I note he has gone on to write at least one rice cooker cookbook. There are numerous rice cooker recipes to be found on the net; one of my favorites is the otherwise quite difficult-to-execute Korean standby Bibim-Bap that was published in the New York Times. If one of you out there has a rice cooker recipe, I'd love to try it.

Salmon and Mashed Rutabaga

Pan-fried salmon is a favorite around here. We buy only wild-caught salmon, not farmed, and not colored. Usually you can find the filets frozen in packs of two, wild-caught sockeye, with the skin on. Fish farms are a bit disgusting, so we prefer salmon caught in the open ocean. Don't tell me about long lines, I have read the same articles. Anyway, without passing judgement, let's talk about how to cook the filets. Mette knows just how to get the skin super-crispy. Salmon skin is another amazing gift of nature. It's fatty, salty, crispy; it's like a pescine version of pork rinds. We"ll show you how to cook it properly so that it's not soggy or slimy, and you'll wonder how many pieces of salmon skin you have thrown away in your life. One of my good scientist friends is Japanese. He and his British wife had a lawn party in Princeton at the height of last summer. He grilled some salmon and, as is his wont, he saved all the grilled, and quite crispy, skin, but no one ate it. He and I, and Mette, stood around in his kitchen and put away some major quantities of beautifully crispy, perfectly seasoned, marvelously fatty sockeye salmon skin.
Tonight we decided to pair this with some mashed rutabaga. Rutabaga is a less starchy, maybe more expensive version of mashed potatoes. It does taste quite a bit like mashed potato but sweeter. Peel the rutabaga and cut into a large dice. Boil in water until tender, maybe 30 minutes. Drain, season with salt and pepper, and mash with some butter; prepare just as you like to do for mashed potatoes.
Start with raw salmon filets with the skin on; thaw if frozen. Dry the filets with paper towels and season both sides with salt and pepper. Heat a saute pan medium-high with a little butter until the butter foams and then subsides. Place the filets in the pan, skin side down, and cook for about 5 minutes. Now, this is important. Do not move the filets. Do not worry that they will stick. There is a lot of fat in the skin, and when they are ready, they will unstick themselves. This is the secret to crispy skin. After about 5 minutes you will be able to jiggle the pan and move the filets around. Flip the filets over and cook through as you like. Some of you will like rare salmon; my wife, who was born in an island city in the North Sea I might add, does not. Flip the fish back over and squeeze a little lemon juice over it. Serve with a little chopped fresh dill. We like this with the side of mashed rutabaga and some brown rice fresh from the rice cooker.

Weekend Chili

Chili is a Texas standby and one of our very favorite dishes to have on the stove during a cold winter weekend. I discovered a recipe 20 years ago in a Pace Picante Sauce newsletter and I have carried it in my head ever since, modifying it over the years. This is easy to execute, quick to prepare, and it has a complex flavor right away. Of course, it is even better, much better in fact, the next day. Chili is very versatile and can be used in many downstream dishes. Add some to scrambled eggs and make a breakfast burrito. An egg can even be poached in the liquid to make Huevos Rancheros (the egg takes quite a bit longer than 3 minutes to poach). It can be used to top a fresh baked potato.
For the meat in this recipe, we have at one time or another used just about everything, ground beef, ground pork, Mexican (not Spanish) chorizo, ground turkey, beef cubes dusted in flour, leftover meat loaf. For the chicken stock, I usually use stock made from a previous dinner's roasted whole chicken, but you may buy low-sodium stock. This recipe is super-easy.
Recipe:
Medium dice one sweet onion and start to saute in butter in a large stock pot. Add about 1 1/2 lbs (600 g) of meat and cook with the onion. Add as much cayenne pepper as you want. I like it red. Drain if necessary. Add a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes (may be in the Mexican food section; another beloved Texas staple) or any diced tomatoes with green chiles, and stir for about a minute. Add a can of red kidney beans, a can of black beans (frijoles negros), and a small can of sweet corn. Add 2 cups (500 mL) chicken stock and BTBRTS (bring to boil, reduce to simmer). Simmer this way, uncovered, for at least a half hour more. Cover and keep warm. Serve with three important items: grated cheese, sour cream, and chopped fresh cilantro.
Remember to save some for the next day so you see how good it can get.

Frittata for Breakfast

A frittata is a great thing to know how to make, because it is simple and tasty (hot or cold) and it can feed a lot of people at once. You need a lot of eggs, which is no problem for us on the farm, we are getting quite a few every day from the chickens. You can use whatever you have in the refrigerator from the night before, such as onion, bacon, tomato, broccoli, ham, sausage, asparagus, I mean whatever you have around. And you need some decent cheese, such as Parmigiano Reggiano or Gruyere, finely grated on your Microplane. Lastly, use a straight-sided, nonstick, oven-safe skillet. Recipe:
In a large bowl, beat enough eggs (usually 8-12) such that the other ingredients are well-covered. Add some grated cheese (1/2 to 1 cup; 125 to 250 mL) and stir well. Saute your other ingredients in the skillet until just cooked through. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet, stir well to distribute everything evenly, and cook on low heat until the edges of the frittata begin to set. Transfer the skillet into a medium oven (325 F/150 C) and bake until the entire frittata is set and begins to brown slightly on top, about 10 minutes. If you have a broiler or salamander you can finish with a short high broil to brown the top, assuming your pan can take the heat. Unmold the frittata onto a towel and then flip it back over onto a serving plate. Cut it into wedges for service.
What's uneaten at breakfast makes a fabulous cold lunch, but for some reason these do not do well re-warmed.

Friday night! Vodka. Hamburger.

Friday night and finally home after a long week. The traffic on the George was horrid; they picked Friday afternoon to shut down one of the bridge lanes. Time for a vodka gimlet.
The gimlet is a very old cocktail, almost forgotten. It's quite simple however, and dangerously tasty, and rarely ordered. Several times I've seen bartenders not know how to make one. In one awful instance the bartender huddled behind the bar and looked the drink up in his book. He must not have been able to read. Here's how to make a proper vodka gimlet. All you need is good-quality vodka and Rose's Lime Juice. You can also make your own sweetened lime juice by adding squeezed lime to a simple syrup, but I rarely do. I really love a vodka from Kentucky called Rain Organic. It has a distinctive flavor and is made by the company that distills Old Rip Van Winkle Bourbon. Recipe:
1 cocktail shaker, filled with ice. (You need this ice. Do not cheat and put the vodka in the freezer)
Fill shaker with vodka to 1/2 inch (a little over 1 cm) from the top of the shaker. Add Rose's Lime Juice to the rim. Cover and shake well. Strain into martini glasses. Repeat if needed.
Our friend Sharon is coming over for dinner. We're going cheap, making Danish hakkebøf. The "ø" in "bøf" means it is pronounced precisely as it is in French, "boef." Literally, hacked-up beef. Gotta love the Vikings. So this is chopped beef, a.k.a. hamburger, Danish style, dusted in flour, fried in butter, topped with caramelized onions. Recipe:

Shape your hamburger patties and crisscross score them on both sides. Salt and pepper and then dredge in flour. Melt butter in a skillet and put patties in. Let them sear on both sides. Depending on your preferred doneness, press on them with a spatula until ready. In a side skillet saute onion slices with a bit of salt and pepper until soft and yellow-brown in color. Prepare a small sauce pan of brown gravy (you can use Knorr's gravy mix as a shortcut). Serve the patties with onions on top and drizzle with brown gravy. Add a dollop of red currant jelly for dipping, and eat with a knife and fork. The Danes do not eat with their hands. That's for Icelanders. Ha!

For sides, I add red cabbage, boiled potatoes. or, for an American take, a bit of cole slaw or a clean, crisp salad. One of these days we'll get to a recipe for red cabbage.

The wife

Hi. I'm the other half of this duo. The wife. I wasn't the foodie, but I'm a contibuting partner. I'm Danish, so I add the comfort food. I strive to make my family happy with nourishing food. I'm the one who knows how to make do with what we have. Like many of us. We're creative. We love our meals. They're all made from scratch with what is in the larder. Follow us. We don't worry about a little butter or a little sugar. It's about taste and moderation. No one leaves hungry or  poorer for the effort. And time is not our enemy. Learning from each other is the objective. And standard meals are not. Let  us know how we're doing!

Leftover Roasted Chicken

A few nights ago we roasted a chicken. Not one of ours.
So we had mostly dark meat left, two wings, two drumsticks, a thigh,
and a small amount of breast meat. I diced up the meat and made two
masu of rice for chicken fried rice. I put the bones in water for some
stock. And I took the skin off all the letover parts and pan-fried the
pieces of skin in some duck fat and...OMG. One hell of a snack.
The Chicken Fried Rice Recipe.
Stir fry two large eggs in a wok in peanut oil and set aside. Slice onions, baby carrots, broccoli crowns, and corn, cut off the cob and add to the oil. Note this is what we have in the refrigerator. You can add what you can find. Once the vegetables are browned, add diced leftover chicken and stir fry for three minutes. Add two masu of cooked white rice, enough soy to color the rice, and two Tbsp of Korean Denjang (available in specialty Asian markets). Stir well and allow the rice to brown and crisp on the bottom of the wok. Stir again, allow to sit, stir and allow to sit until the rice has become somewhat crispy, a total of about five minutes. Add the egg and stir well. Plate and serve immediately.