Year of the Bento: Bento No. 3: Omuraisu (Japanese Omelette Rice)
Omuraisu is kind of like Japan’s equivalent of mac and cheese. Short for “omelette rice”1 , it’s essentially a good way to use leftover ingredients but suit them to Japanese tastes.2
Follow the jump for more, and one more photo (not really a whole gallery this time).
To make omuraisu, one really only needs three things: rice (obviously), egg, and ketchup. The rest of the filling is fairly free-form, but should ideally contain some sort of protein and vegetable(s). Period. The end.
Ah, but I won’t leave you there. Remember back at the beginning of my bento posts, when I talked about how I would eat terribly when left to my own devices?
I still had a hot dog left over from those days. Now, occasional hot dogs aren’t horrible—but I was eating more of them than I should have been, and I know it. My preference is for all-beef ones, and I am loathe to throw things away when they might have been useful. This may, in large part, be another product of my childhood, where I was always told that I had to eat whatever I put on my plate, and that there were starving children in (insert country here) who would be grateful for whatever it was that I was contemplating not finishing.3
Preparation
For personal preference, I always have a bag or two of frozen peas on hand. They come in handy in all sorts of situations, and one of my favorite ways to use them is in omuraisu. I simply defrosted about a cup of these, and added that to a mixture of one cup of leftover rice (long-grain, not sushi rice, and no, you don’t want to ask how many different types of rice I have in the house), one chopped-up hot dog, part of a chopped up vidalia onion, 1/4 c. ketchup, and some kimchee furikake4. I quickly stir-fried all this in my trusty wok, and then I made a one-egg omelette in my 8” non-stick skillet. The omelette consisted of a single egg beaten with a little water (to aid in spreading it out nice and thin to take up the circumference of the pan), a little kosher salt, and some fresh, coarsely-ground black pepper. Voila. The carving of the face was done on a plate with a paring knife, and two peas handily found their way into the eye sockets.
Our total for today:
Omuraisu TOTAL: 586 calories.
Obviously, it would have been healthier if I had used some shredded chicken, some tofu, or even some ground beef or turkey in place of the hot dog—but I had it to use up, so I did, because I don’t like wasting things. It was also very tasty, and reminiscent of what I’m told is called “American fried rice” in Thailand5. Would I do this again? Probably only once in a very long while. As the older, wiser Cookie Monster may very well have said (well, if he preferred hot dogs), “hot dogs are a sometimes food.”
Cookies, on the other hand…;)
- because the Japanese love their portmanteaux almost as much as I do [↩]
- For those interested, this idea of taking Western-style dishes but bending them to Japanese flavor profiles is not uncommon. It’s a subgenre of Japanese cuisine called youshoku. If you’re familiar with kareraisu (curry rice), that’s part of the youshoku family, too. A good indicator is whether or not the name is just a Japanese pronunciation of borrowed English words—but that’s not always the case. However, if sighting such a word makes you suspicious, you may want to investigate further to see if you’re right.
[↩] - Good in theory, because it promotes thoughtful consideration of the mealtime process. However, in actuality, if you’re really hungry, your eyes may well be bigger than your stomach. Should you be punished because you thought you were hungrier than you were? More to the point, should you abuse your body by shoveling more into it than it needs at any given time? Probably not. While wasting food and throwing it down the food disposal or in the trash is fundamentally abhorrent, so too is treating your own body like a trash compactor. Leftovers, I think, are the most graceful and agreeable solution. Again, all paths lead to Bento.
[↩] - Furikake are tasty rice seasonings. You can buy them pre-made or you can make them yourself. They may consist of herbs, spices, dehydrated vegetables, fish flakes…really, anything small and dry and tasty. In this case, the kimchee kind was just that—dehydrated kimchee vegetables and spices. :9 [↩]
- Which is a funny concept, since “fried rice” isn’t a particularly American food to begin with, but I digress…again. [↩]
Janaki
on January 21st, 2010 at 11:01 am
That is quite possibly the most adorable omelette I’ve ever seen.
on January 21st, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Thank you! Lots of people who do bento have done some pretty awesome ones, though. You should check out some others…I don’t think mine’s that adorable in comparison. XD