Monday Madness: Oyakodon

This guest post was written by my husband Peter.

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing the web somewhat mindlessly when I encountered an interesting video on the Great Big Story news website. The video (also available on YouTube here) featured a Japanese restaurant that specializes in the dish oyakodon. The chef in the video explains that the term "oyakodon" roughly translates to "parent and child in the same bowl" referencing the fact that the dish contains both chicken meat as well as eggs.

Being something of a foodie, I decided I must try to reproduce this recipe. Fortunately, YouTube came to my rescue once again with many recipes explaining how to prepare oyakodon. Here is the link to one that I found particularly helpful: (link).

Immediately upon reading the recipe, however, I realized I had one problem. The featured ingredient is a type of fish stock called "dashi" that appears in much of Japanese cooking. Unaunted, however, I forged ahead with a weird mixture of soy sauce and fish sauce. My results actually turned out quite nice, however, the entire dish was overpowered by the flavor of the fish sauce.

Sensing that there was great potential in this recipe, I decided to correct the error of my ways and figure out how to make dashi. Here again, YouTube came to my aid. I found this video to be very instructive in the ingredients and procedure required for making dashi. It is possible to create a version of dashi that uses a powder that relies heavily on MSG. Alternately, the more authentic recipe calls for soaking kelp and fish in water. I really wanted to follow the authentic recipe, but I do not think that my small town has an Asian market. Instead, I turned to Amazon. The required ingredients are kombu kelp and bonito flakes. (I also picked up some hondashi powder.)

Last night I was finally able to make authentic dashi and then use that in oyakodon. The process starts by soaking the kombu kelp in water overnight and then bringing that water just to a boil.

After removing the kelp and the corresponding foam, the bonito flakes go into the water next. In case you are wondering, here is yet another YouTube video explaining what bonito flakes are.

Once the bonito flakes have been strained out of the water, the resulting liquid is dashi. Having made it once, I can tell you that it is probably a bit expensive (the hondashi powder would definitely be a cheaper route to take), but the flavor is well worth the effort!

The next step is to make a sauce that features that dashi stock and then combine the sauce with chicken and onions in a saute pan. Note that I do not own a saute pan. However, one does what one must in these situations.

Finally, some slighly scrambled eggs are poured over the chicken and onion mixture, creating something of an Asian frittatta. At this point, my children kept wandering into the kitchen wondering when dinner would be ready. It seriously smells (and tastes) that good!

If you watched the videos in the link above, you know that the next and final step is to beautifully plate this chicken and egg mixture in a bowl over steamed rice. However, since plating has never been my forte, you get what you get. I'll blame it on not owning a saute pan.

The good news is that my less than stellar plating did not seem to affect the overall taste. I have been told my my children that this is a keeper recipe that should be pulled out again soon. I decided to take action on that suggestion by making myself another serving of oyakodon for breakfast this morning. Yum!

Here is an example of what oyakodon supposed to look like, curtesy of Wikimedia Commons:




Maybe next time I will try using the hondashi powder to see what kind of a difference it makes.