Oyakodon

Servings1

Time to Cook10 minutes

Time to Prepare10 minutes

Recipe developed for BC Egg by Diversivore

Oyakodon is a simple Japanese dish of chicken and egg, simmered in a sweet dashi sauce and served over rice. Our recipe serves one, generously, or makes two average size servings. But, we think it’s so good you won’t want to share.

Ingredients

2 boneless skin-on chicken thighs
1/2 cup dashi (see note)
2 tbsp mirin or sake plus 1/2 tsp of sugar
2 tbsp shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tsp sugar
2 large eggs
1 small onion sliced
1 scallion thinly sliced
shichimi togarashi to garnish
cooked rice to serve

Instructions

Crack eggs into a bowl. Break yolks and mix a little, but leave the yolk and white streaky and separate.
Combine dashi, mirin, shoyu, and sugar. Stir well to combine.
Sear chicken, skin side down. Remove the pan from the heat. Slice the chicken and set it aside (note that it should not be cooked through at this point).
Place the pan back over medium heat. Add the onions and dashi mixture. Bring to a simmer, cook for 1 minute.
Add chicken, skin side up. Simmer until chicken is cooked through and the onions are soft and translucent (about 3-4 minutes).
Pour the eggs into the pan and stir once or twice to distribute everything evenly. Cover, and cook until the egg is barely set (about 1 minute).
Transfer mixture to a hot bowl of cooked rice. Garnish with mitsuba/scallions and shichimi togarashi and serve immediately.

Notes

Dashi – You can use scratch-made dashi (i.e. with katsuobushi and kombu), or instant dashi. Note that many types of instant dashi contain a great deal of added salt, so you may wish to reduce the added soy sauce, then adjust to taste.

Scallions and mitsuba – The scallions are often replaced by mitsuba in Japanese oyakodon recipes, but this leafy herb is often hard to find outside of Japan. Other alternatives include parsley, celery, and cilantro leaves.

Serving size – The recipe as given makes an extremely large single serving or two average size servings. The recipe is easily scaled down by half, but if you want to make more you may want to do so in batches. You can cook an extra large batch in a big frying pan, but you may find it tougher to spoon out individual portions without breaking the eggs up and mixing everything together. Still, this is more of an aesthetic issue than anything – everything will taste great regardless.