Omurice
オムライス
What's so Japanese about ketchup, rice, egg? Omurice (omelette + rice) is a classic dish in Japanese
yoshoku food, which is the class of Japanese-style Western foods. Others include those korokke (croquettes), various Japanese-Italian foods, hamburg, etc. In any case, who would have thought that these humble three ingredients together are the stuff of a great meal? In this version of omurice, I use ground chicken and onion. You can often find other vegetables or meats used in this , but I think onion is pretty critical, and the ground chicken here adds nice bits of flavor without going overboard. After all, this is a simple dish -- so let's keep it simple! (Note this dish is Japanese in origin but it's also widely available in Korea...)
Recipe Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups of rice
- vegetable oil for frying
- 1/2 yellow onion, minced finely
- 1/3 lb ground chicken
- dash of soy sauce
- freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tbsp ketchup
- salt to taste
- 4 eggs
- butter for frying the egg
- 3 tbsp milk
- 1 tbsp mayonnaise
- sprig of chopped parsley for garnish
Recipe Steps:
- Cook the rice, using a little less water than normal. Fluff it up when it's done with a rice scooper, then let it sit for 30 minutes or so in the rice cooker on "warm".
- Saute the minced yellow onion in vegetable oil until translucent. Add the ground chicken, some soy sauce and black pepper; stir frequently on medium high heat and make sure the chicken doesn't get clumped up.
- When the chicken is cooked, turn down the heat to low and stir in the rice, bit by bit so the rice is evenly distributed. Squirt about 2 tbsp of ketchup -- enough that the rice has a good pink coating. Taste and add a *little* bit of salt (remember, you're squirting a lot more ketchup on top so don't go overboard!). Remove from heat and form two oblong rice mounds on plates.
- Whip the eggs, milk and mayo together. Put a dab of butter on a large nonstick pan (goal is to have a thin omelette) on medium heat. When the butter starts to foam, pour half of the egg mixture in and turn the heat down a notch. When the egg is half-cooked (edges are solid but middle is still milky) -- flip carefully on top of one of the rice mounds. Repeat for the other omelette.
- Squirt ketchup artfully on top, and sprinkle with parsley for garnish. Serve with ketchup and (this isn't traditional) Sriracha to add to your own taste.
Serving Size: 2
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
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