If you’ve ever watched anime, you’ve seen this dish.
I tried it in Japan just because of that.
But I didn’t like it…
And it was only later on, during our trip, that we discovered that some restaurants have a sort of “tourists menu” where they mellow the flavours for the westerners… what a pity!
So I ended up, in this case, with spoonfuls of ketchup, basically…
Now, if you’ve never watched anime, I’m talking nonsense. What’s omurice? The word is a combination of omelette and rice, and that’s what it is, it’s a western-style japanese dish. And it’s perfect to use any steamed rice leftover. I think that also regular boiled white rice works.
The principle behind this is suuuuuuper easy and extremely flexible: just panfry some leftover rice with condiments of your choice, then wrap it in a thin omelette.
Done!
I’ve followed the recipe by Just One Cookbook, with a couple of adjustments, so in the link you’ll find the original one, and here my take on it:
– leftover rice, about a cup
– cooking oil
– sesame oil
– onion
– carrot
– salt
– pepper
– soy sauce
– worcester sauce
– oyster sauce
– ketchup
I heated the two oils in a non-stick pan, I added onion and carrot, finely chopped (I had no mushrooms or meat or anything else to go with it).
When the onion turned translucent I added the rice, it takes a while to grain it well.
Then I adjusted with salt and pepper, added soy sauce (which works wonders to unstick the rice), the other sauces and then, at the very last cooking minute, ketchup. Not much of it, since I didn’t like how overwhelming it was when in Japan.
Put aside in a plate and let it sit while I made the l’omelette.
– an egg
– 1tbs milk
– 1tbs olive oil
– a handful of Grana cheese (the original recipe called for sharp cheddar or something just as pungent, but Grana was all that I had!!!)
I greased the pan as suggested (with an oily papertowel, this ensures an even cooking of the egg). Heated up the pan, poured the whisked egg, my pan was large enough to fit all of the egg, if you use a smaller pan you’ll be able to make more servings, if you do not use all the egg mixture at once.
I kept the fire very low, so I had the time to add the cheese, the sauteed rice, and to perform the following.
Fold the edges of the omelette over the rice, as shown in the pictures of the original recipe (I know, it’s counterintuitive pushing you away from this post to check that one, but I do not wish to steal anything from anyone, after all this recipe isn’t that different, mine’s just a little poorer ingredient-wise!). After folding the omelette I let it slide to the side of the pan and then flipped it onto a plate.
Then, with a paper towel, I shaped it like a rugby ball, decorate with ketchup, add some fresh salad on the side and enjoy your meal!
(No, you do not need chopsticks here, use a spoon 😉