Cooking With Keiko

Lesson One: Tamago-yaki

About a month ago, my friend Keiko offered to give me lessons on how to cook Japanese foods. Her co-worker Sumiko, our other friend Noriko, and she came over last week and brought all of the essential ingredients to make tamago-yaki. It is a sweet, egg omelet that is often served over rice as bite size nigiri sushi.

Here's Sydney's version of it (on the red plate) and all the pieces to her Hello Kitty sushi set. (There's velcro between the rice and the fish and there's even velcro between the rolls so she can cut them. Yes, I bought this more for me than her, although she likes some sushi.)

So, Keiko brought her special frying pan needed to make tamago-yaki, bonito flakes to make dashi (a Japanese fish broth essential to all Japanese foods), and also supplied the proper light colored soy sauce for seasoning.

What was funny to me is that she also brought a small metal bowl ("because everything American is big"), a spatula, and vegetable oil, I guess thinking I wouldn't have these things.

What's even more funny is that--probably because Japanese women are very meticulous housekeepers--she even brought her own roll of paper towels! Since she's seen my house many times, it is likely she assumes I must not use paper towels or my house would be cleaner! The sad thing is I spend the better part of an entire day cleaning up before she comes over and the remaining part of the day trying to keep the kids and dog from undoing it all.

Here are the steps we took to make tamago-yaki:

1) First we made a simple dashi by putting a handful of bonito flakes into boiling water for a few minutes. Then we let it cool off for several minutes.

2) Next, we beat 3 eggs with a small wire whisk ("yes, it's American," I told them). In a measuring cup, we added some seasonings to include 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of sake that I happened to have open in the fridge, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and a little salt. Then we poured enough dashi to make about 100 mL of liquid (slightly less than 1/2 cup). We poured our liquid into the eggs and whisked until combined.

3) Next we heated the special frying pan and poured a little vegetable oil into it. We poured about 1/4 of the egg into the pan, or until the egg covers the pan slightly beyond the upward curve of the frying pan. We scrambled the egg slightly and once solid enough, we began to roll the egg into an omelet.

4) We then pushed the omelet roll all the way to the end of the pan (farthest away from the handle) toward the upward curve of the frying pan to let it rest a minute. Then in the same pan, we added another 1/4 of the egg mixture to cover the length of the pan. After scrambling a bit, we lifted the 1st omelet roll up to allow the liquid egg to cook, therefore, fusing to the original omelet. Then we rolled the 1st omelet roll over the 2nd egg omelet, making a larger egg omelet roll--our finished product. (Repeat steps 3 and 4 to make two rolled tamago-yaki.)

5) If the omelet turns out a little misshapen, you can cheat like we did and place it in a bamboo roll and cover with saran wrap for a few minutes (if eaten warm) or store in the refrigerator overnight before serving chilled.

6) Unwrap, slice and eat or place over sushi rice. Oishi!