My favourite in any Japanese restaurant is always Oyako-don (followed closely by salmon sushi with lots of wasabi, yum). I’ve been searching for a simple Oyako-don recipe for some time, and I think I finally found one here. For some reason, I love dishes combining egg and meat…

Shopping list (for 2):

• 1 cup dry (3 cups cooked) rice
• 150g or so chicken thigh meat
• 1 brown onion
• 3 eggs
• 2 and 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 and 1/2 tablespoons mirin (sweet sake)
• 1 sachet dashi (soup broth) mixed in 2/3 cup boiling water
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Cooking:

• Slice chicken and onion into small pieces.
• Put rice on to boil. My Singaporean friends taught me to put the rice in the saucepan; flatten it; then fill with water from the tip of your index finger touching the rice to your first finger joint.
• At the same time, boil the chicken and onion in the soy sauce, mirin, dashi, water and sugar.
• Once the chicken is cooked, swirl in the eggs without scrambling them too much. Cook eggs, but once they start bubbling strongly, put on the lid and steam them about 5 minutes or until cooked.
• Serve rice and place chicken/egg mixture on top without breaking it up too much. Miso soup and a fresh green salad to complete the meal.

Actually, I was rather impressed. Tasted pretty authentic to me, although I’m not Japanese. ;D Enjoy!

The first of a series, hopefully. I’m searching for enough easy-to-make but tasty recipes to fill a week or so of dinners. This is my first find, from one of Jamie Oliver’s books. Adapted so that the ingredients are easy to buy at Mr Lucky’s supermarket and so the instructions are the sort I understand.

Shopping list (for 2):

• enough bow-ties (pasta) for 2
• sealed pack of bacon (Weight Watchers, preferrably) 3 slices or 6 rounds
• 200 ml pure cream (King Island Dairy) only 1/4 actually used
• 1 egg (only buy 6 eggs if you don’t use them much)
• black pepper
• small bag baby peas (frozen)

Cooking:

• Put the water on to boil. Yes, really. Cooking the pasta’s the most time consuming part.

• Fry bacon in minimum oil until cooked, then turn the frying pan off. Put the bow-ties in the water as soon as it starts boiling.

• Whisk 1/4 of the cream with the egg and pepper. Keep an eye on pasta.

• Put the peas in with the bow-ties as soon as they start going pale at the edges. I like a lot of peas, 2 generous cups.

• Drain peas and bow-ties in a colander, immediately empty the colander into the fry pan (where the bacon is) and stir in the cream and eggs mixture. Don’t turn the frying pan on again, the egg is cooked by the warmth of the bow-ties.

• Serve and eat. A little parmesan is nice.