Tamagoyaki - Japanese Sweet Egg Omelet

One of the most overlooked items on the sushi restaurant menu is tomago. It's a wonderfully flavorful and sweet egg omelet, and when ordered as nigiri (on top of rice) can be one half or less than the cost of fish.

The ingredients here are pretty standard: eggs, salt, sugar, soy sauce, and the slightly less standard mirin. It's a japanese cooking rice wine. It should be available in any asian market. Start off by cracking the four eggs.

Add in two tablespoons of sugar, or 1/2 a tablespoon per egg if you're sizing the recipe down. 

Throw in 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce and mirin, and a couple of pinches of salt.

Make sure not to add too much liquid. If you do, the egg won't stick together. Now, take out a set of chop sticks and gently beat the mixture.

Again, over mixing can screw this up. Too much air will give you a fluffy omelet, which won't work. Heat up a pan with cooking oil. You'll want to keep either a brush and cooking oil, or a paper towel with cooking oil handy. You have to regularly re-oil the pan to avoid sticking.

Heat up the pan and pour between a third and a half of the eggs into the pan. Also, this is a tomago pan. They're hard to find locally, but pretty cheap online. It's not required, but it does make the cooking a lot easier.

Let the egg set almost completely, then fold it over on itself. Re-oil the pan, and then pour another 1/4 to 1/3 of the mixture.

Once it's mostly set, fold, oil, and pour.

That should be the last of your egg, so once this has mostly set, fold it over again, keep it on the stove for a minute, and then take it off. Let it cool for 15 or 20 minutes before you try to slice it.

Slice the tomago along the short egg at about a 45 degree angle. Discard the first slice, it will be oddly shaped and not at all pretty. Subsequent slices will look like this.

Follow last week's guide to making sushi rice, and this guide to forming nigiri, wrap with a belt of nori, and you'll get this.

Ingredients:

4 Eggs

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce

1 Tablespoon Mirin

2 pinches salt

Procedure:

1. Gently mix everything in bowl.

2. Heat up a pan with cooking oil.

3. Pour 1/3 to 1/2 of the mixture in the pan. Wait until it is mostly set, and fold over.

4. Re-oil the pan, and repeat step 3 with 1/4 to 1/3 of the mixture.

5. Repeat step 4.

6. Let the egg cook for another minute, then take it off the heat, and let cool.

7. Cut for use in nigiri, sushi rolls (maki) or fried rice. Seriously. Try it in fried rice.