A recent arti­cle that I found on Ameba (the Japan­ese equiv­a­lent of Word­press, but with more celebrity blog­gers) fea­tured a rank­ing of pop­u­lar don­buris (bowls).

The over­all num­ber 1 was, and will always be the ever-popular gyu-don, or beef bowl, but the data itself was pretty inter­est­ing.
Most peo­ple, like busy salary-men (office drones) and stu­dents like gyu-don because it’s easy and quick to eat (lit­er­ally some­thing that you can shovel into your mouth on the go — the Yoshi­noya empire is built upon this sin­gle dish). And men tend to enjoy heaty don­buris like katsu-don and ten-don.
Women, on the other hand, tend to enjoy don­buris with a lit­tle extra flair, like negitoro-don (tuna-and-scallions) and loco-mocos.

The same goes for us two, Don and I. Every­time we go to Fukada, our favorite casual Japan­ese eatery, I order the spicy tuna bowl, which is the California-nized cousin of the negitoro-don. And Don always gets the oyako-don or the katsu-don — some­thing heftier. I guess boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, regard­less of where they are.

Of course, read­ing the arti­cle got me honker­ing for a don­buri din­ner, so I scoured through my Japan­ese cook­books and cook­ing mag­a­zines. Here’s what we ended up eat­ing — a lighter take on the tra­di­tional oyako-don, with an herby kick from a dash of san­sho pep­per. Quite deli­cious with some robust houji-cha (roasted green tea), if I may add.

horo­horo oyako-don

adapted from a recipe fea­tured on Orange Page July 2007 issue,
serves 2

2 chicken thighs
1/2 block of silken tofu
3 eggs
3 stalks scal­lions
1 tsp thinly juli­enned gin­ger
3/4 cup dashi broth*
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp soy sauce
optional: san­sho pepper

1) Cut up chicken thighs into 1-inch cubes. Repeat with the tofu, and chop up scal­lions into 1/2 inch knubs.

2) Com­bine dashi, sugar, mirin, soy sauce, and gin­ger into a large, shal­low fry­ing pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat.

3) Throw in chicken, tofu, and green onion chunks, and put on lid. Let it sim­mer for 2–3 min­utes, or until the chicken looks cooked. Don’t let all the liq­uid evap­o­rate though!

4) Beat up the eggs. Remove the lid and pour in half of the eggs around the outer edge of the fry­ing pan. Put the lid back on and let sim­mer for a minute.

5) Remove the lid and pour in the rest of the eggs in the cen­ter of the fry­ing pan. Put on the lid and let it sim­mer for 30 sec­onds more, until the eggs are semi-cooked (or a minute if you want your eggs fully cooked and un-gooey).

6) Put some hot white rice in a bowl, and cover with the oyako-don fix­ings. Sprin­kle on some san­sho pep­per and enjoy.

* “horo­horo” loosely means some­thing along the lines of “del­i­cate” “frag­ile” “crumbly”. In this case, it illus­trates the silken tofu.

* dashi can be made by soak­ing some kombu kelp and a hand­ful of large bonito flakes in a bowl of just-boiled water for two min­utes. This way, it won’t be as fishy nor bit­ter. Some peo­ple like to re-constitute their dried shi­itake in this mix­ture to add more umami. Strain before using.

* san­sho pep­per is often used to brighten sweet-savory dishes like baked eel (unagi-don) and oyako-don. The come ground, and you can find them at the Japan­ese mar­ket. But if you like more heat, shichimi pep­per is yummy too!

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Tagged as: donburi, Japanese, recipes