Cook: Oyakodon - Chicken and Egg over Rice
Below is the original recipe that I’ve used for Japanese chicken and egg over rice. It comes from a cookbook made by Japanese women in the Colorado community that I grew up in. The 1st edition was published in 1960. If you don’t know how older Asian women cook, it goes something like this, “Oh, just add a bit of this, and then put that in the pot, cook it for a while and then add some more of this…” Not super helpful when you’re trying to document recipes for a food blog. Luckily, I’ve made this enough times that I combined that knowledge with the exact measurements of the cookbook.
Prep Time: 20 minutes, Total Time: 1 hour
Serves: 3-4
Ingredients:
3 small onions (peeled and thinly sliced, 1-2 will work too, if you don’t want to use this many)
1 package of chicken (I like to use thighs)
5 shiitake mushrooms (soaked in warm water for about 15 minutes)
3-4 eggs (or more if you want if eggy)
Kosher salt (to taste)
2 cups of dashi
1/2 bag of frozen green peas
2-3 tbsp shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp Mirin
Directions:
Make your dashi first. I typically use the powder form of dashi since I don’t have a lot of time on the weeknights to make the homemade kind. Mix in enough dashi powder for 2 cups of broth.
Add in shoyu, salt, sugar and mirin to the soup mixture. Taste and alter to your liking. Bring to a boil and add in the sliced onions. Let them simmer until they are soft about 7-10 minutes.
Once the onions are soft and translucent, add in the soaked and sliced mushrooms and the chicken. You can add a dash of the water that the mushrooms were soaking in for some more umami flavor. Bring the soup mixture to a simmer and cook the chicken for 10 minutes.
Turn the chicken over about halfway through, until it’s cooked all the way. Total cooking time will be 25 minutes or so. Make sure to check that there is no pink before you serve.
While the chicken is cooking, crack and mix your eggs in a bowl and add a little bit of salt and pepper. Make it like you’re preparing scrambled eggs. Pour this into the mixture slowly and stir into the pot with all the ingredients. The eggs should break up and resemble egg drop soup. Add in the frozen peas until they turn bright green.
Let this simmer for about 5-10 more minutes and then pour over a hot bowl of rice. You can top with sliced green onions and red shoga (ginger). Add some togarashi (Japanese seasoning) if you want a bit of a kick!
