Tenshindon

A soft crab omelette laid over rice, with a sharp sauce made separately and poured on after.

Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken stock, shellfish.

Ingredients

the omelette

• 8 eggs
• 200 g white crab meat
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced
• 50 g bamboo shoots, in fine strips
• 1 teaspoon sake
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons oil

the sauce

• 300 ml chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon potato starch, slaked in 2 of water
• 4 portions hot rice

Method

1. THE SAUCE IS MADE IN A CLEAN PAN AND MEETS THE FOOD ONLY ON THE PLATE. That is the whole separation from the chukadon on this site, where the sauce is the stir-fry's own liquid and never leaves the wok. Here the omelette is cooked dry, in oil, and the sauce is poured over it at the last moment so the surface stays distinct.
2. AND THE SAUCE IS SHARP, not savoury-thick. Two tablespoons of rice vinegar against a tablespoon of sugar: it is meant to cut the richness of eight eggs and a pan of oil.
3. THE OMELETTE IS BARELY SET AND NEVER FOLDED. Beaten eggs into a hot oiled pan, stirred twice, and off the heat while the top is still glossy and loose. It carries on cooking on the rice.
4. A FOLDED OMELETTE IS THE OTHER DISH on this site -- the tamagoyaki idea of rolling layers has nothing to do with this. This is a flat round disc, slid out whole.
5. DO NOT BEAT THE EGGS SMOOTH. Twenty strokes with chopsticks, so there are still streaks of white. Over-beaten, it sets uniformly rubbery.
6. Fold the crab, spring onion and bamboo through the eggs off the heat, with the sake and salt, just before cooking.
7. Generous oil and a genuinely hot pan. The underside should set on contact; a cool pan means the egg weeps and sticks.
8. One omelette per bowl, so each is small enough to slide out in one piece. A single large one tears.
9. Sauce: stock, vinegar, soy and sugar brought to the boil in a clean pan, then the starch in a stream with it boiling, stirring, until it just coats a spoon.
10. Rice in the bowl, omelette slid on top, sauce poured over it at the table. Poured early it slackens the egg.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes