Tip: Cheater's Omuraisu

Though I made this, I have to give credit to M. for the idea. Made this for lunch this past Tuesday. I had made the omuraisu (omelette rice) filling but using Jasmine rice instead of Korean short-grain, which I normally use, and I was worried it wasn't going to hold together very well (the grains are more distinct with Jasmine). Then, M. suggested I just make a flat omelette and drape it over the mound of rice (the cheese blanket, I should say, was his idea too). Isn't it purdy?:

Fried rice waiting with cheese blanket

Close-up on the masterpiece

Looks like some kind of sea creature...a horseshoe crab, perhaps?

This time I added canned diced tomatoes, sliced pyogo 표고 mushrooms (my current favorite Korean mushroom, kind of like a shitake, sooo good) and broccoli florets to the rice filling (whatever happened to be on hand).

What to do with leftover eggwash?

Whenever I made something breaded that requires an egg wash, I always end up either tossing the extra beaten egg immediately, or put it in the fridge but toss it later anyway because I forget it's there and it goes bad.

Now, though, I know exactly what to do.

The other day I was making breaded chicken cutlets to go with pasta for lunch, and it dawned on me:
Why not just mix the leftover beaten egg in with the hot pasta in the pan, Carbonara-style?

So I did (being careful to cook the egg, stirring constantly, so, not exactly Carbonara...) and the results were really tasty: the egg coated each strand and gave it a silky texture.

The pasta sauce itself was a riff on a green olive pantry sauce that I've been making a lot lately (taking advantage of my huge jars of pimento-stuffed green olives from Costco): chopped green olives, minced garlic, minced green hot peppers (고추) and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

All those times I squandered that extra egg...