Japanese Menu - Oyakodon

Menu Taste and Personal Experience:

Oyakodon Set Menu

Oyakodon was actually my very first Japanese menu that I tried so this menu really has a special meaning for me. This menu makes me fall in love with Japanese food. Making it was actually quite simple but the taste and smell is really delicious. Even though the actual taste itself is delicious enough, if I ordered this menu in a restaurant, I would always add chili powder on top of the toppings since I really like my food to be spicy. Also do not forget to have miso soup as a side, they really complement well with each other. I can say without doubt that this is my favourite donburi :).

Menu Description:

Oyakodon is actually a donburi (Japanese rice bowl dish), in which chicken, onions, eggs and other ingredients are all simmered together in donburi sauce and then served on top of a bowl of rice. The name of the dish, parent and child donburi, is a poetic reflection of the fact that both chicken and egg are used in the dish. In Japan, oyakodon is often served in soba restaurants and other traditional Japanese restaurants.
The donburi simmering sauce varies according to season, ingredient, region, and taste. A typical sauce might consist of dashi flavored with shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin. Proportions vary, but usually there is three to four times as much dashi as shoyu and mirin. For oyakodon, Tsuji (1980) recommends dashi flavored with light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and sugar.

Menu Ingredients:
(Makes 4 small bowls of oyakodon)

• Cooked rice as needed
• 400 grams og chicken thighs or breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 3/4 cups dashi soup stock (can also be replaced with powdered dashi/katsuobushi boiled in water)
• 4 eggs
• 4 tbsp mirin (japanese sweet rice wine, usually used for cooking)
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 7 tbsp soy sauce
• nori dried seaweed *optional

Menu Directions:

1. Pour dashi soup stock in a pan or skillet and put on medium heat.
2. Add mirin, sugar, and soy sauce into the soup.Stir to blend.
3. In different pan, fry chicken until half cooked. 
4. Add onion into the pan and stir fry until the chicken are almost cooked.
5. Pour the soup from the other pan/skillet into the chicken and onion. Simmer on low heat for a few minutes.
6. Meanwhile, lightly beat eggs in a bowl. Add pepper to taste (optional)
7. Bring the soup to a boil, and pour the eggs over the mixture.
8. Turn the heat down to low and cover with a lid.
9. After one minute, turn off the heat.
10. Put cooked rice into deep serving bowls, then serve the cooked toppings on top. Sprinkle strips of dried seaweed on top (optional).

Menu Related Videos:

How to make oyakodon: 



A Chef cooking oyakodon: 



Another style to cook oyakodon: 

Menu Sources and References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/oyakodon
(GNU Free Documentation License)