Recreating Maangchi's Seafood Kimchi Fried Rice From Taste

Hi, I'm Hana.

I'm in the BA test kitchen

to have a super secret conversation about Chris Morocco.

Once again, we're putting Chris' super taster abilities

to the test.

This is Maangchi's seafood kimchi fried rice.

I'm challenging Chris to recreate this dish

with all of the ingredients in just one day.

He'll be able to taste it, touch it, and smell it,

but at no point will he be able to see this dish.

At the end of the day,

we'll come back to see his final creation,

and I'll be the judge.

[helicopter rotor whirring]

[radio operator speaks indistinctly]

[tense music]

[radio operator speaks indistinctly]

[Radio Operator] Look like spoons.

[intense music]

[eye cover creaking]

[Chris inhales deeply]

[intense music]

[gentle upbeat music]

[Chris sniffing]

Ha.

There's something a little like fishy,

a little like squidy, little oystery,

but like, also like, bean sprouts.

Just gonna let that hang out in the room.

Y'all discuss.

Wow, whatever it is, there's a lot of it.

It seems like we've got some bivalve shells.

I'm gonna probably call this for a mussel.

Wait, more seafood?

But like with a different shape to the shell.

It's like, this feels like, more like a clam or a cockle.

Sort of like flattened the lips kind of thing.

You've got clam or is it a cockle?

[chicken clucking]

Or a Manila clam?

[gentle music]

Oh my gosh.

You know when you can like...

It's like you know the smell

and yet like, you can't...

Oh, kimchi. [slurps]

Oh God, that's good.

Oh, we've got shrimp.

It feels like it was probably seared.

Trying to figure out what these little like pops of texture

and firmness are.

Oh, sesame seeds.

[gentle music]

So now I have like a large diver scallop.

[people chattering]

Hmm.

Feels like it was probably seared.

Just has a little bit more bite to it

that doesn't feel like it came from poaching or steaming.

It's like a lot of food here.

Six scallops maybe and counting.

So I think I'm mostly down to rice now.

It's all kind of like joined together.

[gentle upbeat music]

It's spicy but it's like very savory.

[gentle upbeat music]

I mean, I think it's reasonable

to think that there could be some gochujang in here.

Maybe a little bit of soy sauce.

Could be a seafood based stock.

Sort of like Korean doshi.

There also is this element over here

that I need to get into.

[gentle upbeat music]

Oh.

It's giving me soy plus citrus,

with almost like a horse radish quality to it,

like wasabi.

It reads kind of thin,

but there's also like a little bit of texture,

as though something we're kind of stirred in and dissolved.

Is it like a S&B Hot Oriental Mustard?

All the flavors I'm tasting

feel like of a Korean pantry.

This is like kimchi fried rice with seafood.

The top line is like, it's really good.

[gentle upbeat music]

So I'm gonna break down some of these components.

You've got mussels.

We're gonna call those cockles or Manila clams.

Medium shrimp, sea scallops, short green, white rice.

And then you've got the kimchi as well.

Do I think we need to actually make a seafood broth?

Kombu, salted anchovies and mustard powder.

[Chris exhales sharply]

But beyond that, I don't know, I guess we'll see.

This is my list.

Somebody else is gonna shop this for me.

Not riding on any shopping carts today so sorry.

[upbeat music]

[graphics whooshing]

There's not a lot of stuff here.

I didn't even talk about garlic or ginger did I?

I didn't really taste it,

but like looking at this stuff here,

it's like, Oh, yeah.

I wanna get started by making some rice.

I'm looking for rice that is chewy, nice,

like kind of like pleasantly dense compact grains.

And I'll make enough for both rounds of testing.

So let's toast off some sesame seeds.

I feel like I was tasting something bursting with flavor

and nuttiness.

And then I think there's some kind of broth

being added to it.

Something you know, it's like really flavoring the rice.

And to that end I'm gonna get some kombu soak in.

Korean style doshi uses dried anchovy

as opposed to katsuobushi.

Ben just popped one for the record.

I mean that's like off-label use as far as I'm concerned.

[people chattering]

It's been a long time,

but I do feel like you normally take out

the little black intestinal tract.

And you often do take the head off as well.

These are gonna be adding salt, funkiness and depth.

I don't think I,

like honestly,

tasted something like as intense as like the dried anchovy.

But nice to have the option

of using an already fully-flavored broth

to thin out our gochujang

and then incorporate into that fried rice mixture.

So maybe we'll chop the kimchi.

[knife thudding]

And I was kind of questioning,

Okay, well is there any additional acid in this dish?

But I think it could vary,

possibly only be coming from the kimchi.

Rice is off heat.

I'm just fluffing it.

Redistribute some of that moisture.

[lid clangs]

Lids back on for 10 more minutes

just to kind of steam it out.

Our dashi mixture.

I think we're good to go here.

[Chris slurping]

Ooh, it's nice.

It just creates this like sweetness and roundness,

and surprisingly clean.

Gochujang is a Korean fermented chili pepper paste.

It's a one stop flavor powerhouse.

The question of whether soy sauce belongs in here,

I'm leaning a little bit less

on the notion of it being in there,

'cause there is that finishing drizzle

that would seem to have mustard powder.

There was a little bit of like a siltiness to it.

[gentle upbeat music]

Ooh, a lot of bitterness there.

So I'm gonna try prepared wasabi.

[gentle upbeat music]

It's a little bit cleaner, brighter.

We'll do something like that.

[Chris exhales deeply]

Let's say we're there.

Oil.

Just doing a little pre salting.

[gentle upbeat music]

The question is, I mean are we doing scallops first,

[scallops sizzling]

scallops and shrimp together?

Maybe we'll do scallops first and then shrimp.

[scallops sizzling]

[Cameraman] Where do think SKA-lupps comes from?

I don't know.

Where does scallop come from? The word.

[Speaker] Yeah.

Oh, my pronunciation? You're pronunciation

of scallop. Oh, possibly

from my grandmother.

[Cameraman] Where's your grandmother from?

Worcester.

Oh, Worcester. Worcester.

Seems like if you're gonna sear a scallop, go for it.

Feels like it was probably seared.

[scallops sizzling]

Oh, [beep] sorry.

I didn't realize we were going quite that hard.

Hard sear. [chuckles]

Sorry, we'll get 'em next time.

Doing shrimp now.

[shrimps sizzling]

I don't know, this is feeling kind of like,

almost needlessly fussy.

Two rounds of seafood cooking, then we start our rice.

[food sizzling]

Love kimchi.

It's also like really cool what happens when you cook it.

It tempers the acidity a little bit,

but brings out a lot of like the sweetness.

About two cups of rice.

I just wanna break it up a little bit.

So I'm just gonna kind of leave that in contact here.

Get that pretty gosh darn crispy.

[food sizzling]

This is ready.

So Manila clams are going in

and mussels are in.

Rather save the cockles maybe for the final dish.

[food sizzling]

[lid clangs]

The workflow just seems a little weird.

It would be one thing if you were serving from this.

But ultimately it's like,

whatever you arrange in the cooking environment,

you kind of have to undo

for the sake of plating in a bowl.

[gentle upbeat music]

We're gonna pop open.

I'm gonna layer our shrimp in,

scallops.

It's kind like Korean paella.

So the goal with the liquid now is to reduce down further,

and hopefully that happens in a couple minutes

so we don't overcook anything.

[graphics whooshing]

So this is sort of the awkward thing, right?

There's a lot of like manual intervention.

You kind of want the rice on the bottom.

Striking me as like a little bit weird.

It's like a very awkward plate.

So there's our toasted sesame seeds.

It's wasabi.

So this is my first attempt at the dish.

Kimchi paella or kimchi seafood fried rice.

[Chris groans]

Ooh, ha, ingredients, I'd give myself 60.

The main things that I feel good about

are the seafood selection.

Rice, kimchi and probably the gochujang,

after that...

[hand whooshing]

Technique wise, 60.

Doing the scallops and then the shrimp.

Do they really need to be seared on their own

or could everything just go into the pot together?

Visually? Maybe 80.

The elements feel like they're there.

Flavor-wise, the heat balance actually seems pretty good

to me.

Maybe 70.

Actual scores.

Let's see where we're at. [groans]

[tense music]

That's not unexpected, ingredient and technique wise.

I am going to be looking really closely again

at how these ingredients come together.

I don't know, it's either think less or think more.

[tense music]

[pensive music]

Mm, God, there's something about like,

the way like a scallop, in particular smells,

I find very compelling.

Maybe there's no sear happening here.

[pensive music]

I'll buy that, no sear on the scallop.

What about the shrimp?

I think maybe it's that rice mixture that made it read

like the shrimp would've needed to be seared on its own.

I think I'm feeling good about my seafood selection.

The kinds of aromatics that I would think about

would be onion, scallion, garlic and ginger.

[pensive music]

So it's like a really nice sweetness.

Could it be that there's like a little bit of onion?

Feeling for that little layer of sediment

settling in at the bottom. [slurps]

Is it just a style of prepared mustard?

I thought we had covered our bases

with like a mustard powder,

but is there also like a wasabi powder?

That's just something I just don't know.

Alright, second tasting done.

I think I've learned what I can,

and time to have my attempt at the last dish.

[upbeat music]

I've never used wasabi powder before.

It has been opened.

So intrigued by the directions

on how you prepare the wasabi,

that I'm gonna follow the directions exactly.

Alright, we made a paste.

Place container upside down

and wait one minute for maximum spiciness.

[upbeat music]

Minute timer.

It's building spiciness.

What do you think is happening?

I mean [indistinct]. Is it like

minimizing oxygen?

[horn honking]

Just follow the instructions exactly

and don't change a thing.

Do you use the prepared wasabi with the soy

or just put wasabi powder in soy?

[gentle upbeat music]

Yeah, it's given me a little bit of that

like, gritty texture.

And then the prepared wasabi.

Maybe there's no difference here.

I'm gonna just go with the prepared one.

One big difference here is aromatics.

For aromatics, what I'm really talking about is onion.

Garlic next.

Ginger.

So the aromatics are done.

I used Manila clams in my first attempt.

I was feeling more manila on this tasting,

but it would just be such a shame

not to cook off those cockles, you know?

And they're so damn good.

I'm just doing a cup of water.

Cockles and mussels are in.

I'm just looking to cook them

such that I can shuck them open,

and then ultimately use this liquid

as the base of our sauce.

So I've got a little onion, ginger and garlic.

I just wanna get these soft

and I wanna develop their flavor a little bit.

Get our kimchi in.

Just a little bit of like the kimchi juice.

A little bit of brightness.

I'm gonna go with three cups of rice

just so I make sure I have plenty of this mixture.

You're using kind of fresher rice.

This is kind of the moment

that you need to spend a little bit of effort

breaking it up and breaking it apart.

[rice sizzling]

So I'm just throwing scallops and some shrimp into a bowl

so I can season them with a little bit of salt.

[Speaker] Sounds perfect.

Rice is real close.

Hear the pitch go up?

A little bit more dried out, crackly.

The thing that feels hardest to me is honestly the scallops.

Saying it, hearing myself saying it

and then watching myself just sort of

chuck 'em into a fried rice mixture

rather than trying to get them like burnished and crispy.

Just like dumping 'em in there kind of unceremoniously.

That is our seafood broth.

I mean it's certainly easier this way.

I basically want it to be just about dry,

but I want the seafood cooked through.

And do a little pinch of salt in there.

[food sizzling]

And then our cooked bivalves just went in.

[people chattering]

I don't know, I mean it seems a little bit wrong to me.

Like there's quite so much rice on top.

I don't know, if I start messing with it,

I mean, there's just like no end to it.

So we're gonna say that it's done.

[gentle upbeat music]

This is my second and final attempt of the dish.

It looks like, frankly, a little bit of a mess. [chuckles]

Everything kind of jumbled in there together.

But I think I created flavors

that are very similar to the dish.

In terms of talking scores,

my actual on ingredients was a 60.

Maybe we pulled this up to a 70.

Technique-wise,

I would love to think we made some material improvements.

And again, like maybe we pulled that up to a 70.

Appearance? [groans]

Did I just shoot myself in the foot?

Maybe we can hope that this is like,

still at least like an 85.

Flavor-wise,

I'd love to think this is like, kind of knocking on an 85.

Once again, we have Hana lined up to judge.

We all know she can be tough,

but she ultimately is very fair.

This is the point in the day where I'm just like,

I just need to know. I just need to know the answers.

Please put me outta my misery.

Hey Hana, back so soon?

[laughs] We meet again.

Yeah. Like, shall we

just get into it? Sure.

Absolutely.

May I present to you

Maangchi's seafood, kimchi fried rice.

[Chris groans]

At first, I seared my shrimp and my scallops.

And then for the second attempt I didn't.

But overall, like the color, the general ingredients,

they look to be the same.

Are the scallops and shrimp

ever incorporated into the fried rice,

or are they simply put onto the plate

as part of the final presentation?

It is the latter.

Okay. And wait,

like you say scallops.

Have you- No, we already...

We covered that earlier. You did? Okay. [laughs]

She treats the scallops and the shrimp

before she even cooks them

with salt, pepper,

and like a light dusting of potato starch,

which is what is accounting for this very light crust.

And then she is creating an infused oil

with a few aromatics.

She uses that oil to cook both the scallops

and shrimp first.

Then she puts in her clams and mussels,

cooks them into the pop open.

What is she doing with the liquid?

She doesn't do anything to the liquid.

So what you did is something that I would do,

just reinforce the...

Yeah, sure. The end result.

Put it somewhere because it's like liquid gold.

And then she starts her kimchi fried rice.

So what she does is sautes the kimchi for a few minutes.

She adds her rice and then her gochujang,

then all of the seafood gets reintroduced

and like, just dotted on top.

Covers the pan with the lid,

and allows the bottom of the rice to crisp up.

I know you're frying as... Oh. Yeah.

One wood and should to make a fried rice.

Yeah. Constantly.

But that's not what she does.

Hers is largely stationary.

But yeah, it's not wrong, but not right.

And then- That's like

[laughs] the most Hana statement ever. Is it?

I mean this is also a very unique dish

to have like a sidecar of dipping for the seafood.

I see. Not necessarily

for the rice. For the rice.

Yeah.

I ended up coming around to wasabi powder.

Excellent.

Wait, did you reconstitute the wasabi and water first?

Yes.

Okay, great. That's exactly what-

That's what it said to do on the tin.

Oh, [laughs] good.

And then lastly,

the finishing touch for like 99% of Korean cooking,

you need to know this,

is toasted sesame oil.

Is it? Okay. And Maangchi in particular,

you know, she's like, Sesame oil.

Like you know that's gonna finish every single dish.

So ingredients, you gave yourself a 70

and I gave you a 75.

You got nearly all, I mean potato starch,

like that's very advanced level.

And then like cockles for clams.

I think that's like a fine substitute.

You did add ginger.

[Chris] Yeah.

The toasted sesame oil,

like I had to knock you

on that. Mm-hmm.

So for technique, you gave yourself a 70,

and I actually gave you a 65.

The way Maangchi made it is not how I would make it,

but it's not how you made it either. [laughs]

Due to you, not following her technique,

like the texture on the seafood is like not the same.

[Chris] Definitely am.

So talking about appearance,

you gave yourself an 85,

and I actually gave you an 87.

Because frankly, it's a little bit more rustic.

But if we were to replay it,

like I think we could try to mimic this.

How about taste?

I think we need to try it. Sure.

Maangchi first. I want a scallop.

The textures of the seafood elements are really nice.

I love the presentation.

[Hana] Yeah. Wanna try her dipping?

That's nice.

Okay, let's try Chris Morocco's.

[Chris] Oh heavens.

It's wetter and more gingery.

Mm-hmm. Little like toastier.

They look very similar.

But when you taste it,

this more traditional style

has like pops of acidity from the brine.

This one has like a deep savoriness

coming from the reinforced broth.

But also that ginger is a little bit heavy handed for me.

Mm-hmm.

You gave yourself an 85. I would give you an 82.

I'm so nice to you. [laughs]

So my score to you is a 77.

Okay.

[groans] I mean I knew there was about 50 different ways

to put that dish together,

and I think I found the 49 wrong ways.

It's like sucks to feel yourself

basically trying to validate your C,

and like play it off like it's a good thing.

But honestly like with this one,

like I'll take that any day,

are you kidding?

That's fine. We'll get 'em next time.

Or not. [laughs]

43 tries and counting.

Still haven't gotten a straight A, but that's alright.

[Maangchi] We need to add gochujang about maybe...

See this is where I'm like...

[Chris groans]

Alright, fair enough.

We didn't need the liquid.

[hand thuds] [upbeat music]

Alright.

[upbeat music]

I'm catching my train.

Fair play, Maangchi.

You win this one.