Omuraisu (オムライス)
Omuraisu means Omelet with Rice. The best known kind contains chicken stir-fried rice flavoured with ketchup (or tomato sauce). My favourite Omuraisu omelette uses half-cooked egg. This way, the first bite of Omuraisu is a little runny, so that it mixes well with the ketchuppy fried rice!
I loooove omelettes. But when I cooked them in the UK, I realised how much the colour affects the taste of food! The yolk was not as yellow as Japanese eggs – to me it looked almost white. Well, maybe I didn’t buy the best free-range eggs …
We Japanese tend to like a more yellow yolk. Of course, the colour depends on what the chickens eat, so a very yellow yolk might be not a natural colour. Here in Switzerland, it depends. I bought organic eggs, and the yolk was yellow, so it appears this is not necessarily a chemically induced colour!
For stir-frying rice, use already cooked leftover rice. Just-cooked rice is not suitable for stir frying, because it’s sticky. I always use leftover rice. Warm it up in the microwave or pour hot water over it (to take off the stickiness), then fry. For fried rice, other kinds of rice such as long grain, basmati, etc… are better than Japanese rice. I normally stock some rice in the freezer, and using Japanese rice is easier for me. Also for this Omuraisu, the slight stickiness makes it easier to shape.
I’ve always thought Omuraisu was a meal for children, but why shouldn’t adults enjoy it too?
Omuraisu
