Eggs

The eggs in Japan are magical. I don't think it is the product itself, but how the Japanese cook them. Judging by how a raw egg comes out of its shell (and into my waiting rice bowl) I don't think they are any better or fresher than a supermarket egg in the USA. A farmstand egg if given a chance probably will blow a Japanese egg away. I wrote about the hanjuku preparation before of the onsen-tamago and even the cafeteria egg, with a slightly cooked white and reasonably firm yolk. These are the eggs they put on hamburgers and serve as a side with a little yuzu and soy sauce. I think today I realized there is an even better way to cook an egg.

This preparation is called ni-tamago. It's the egg you saw in my ramen bowl in a previous post. I didn't realize it then, maybe because I was too exited about eating my first bowl of noodles in Japan, but the ni-tamago is king in that bowl of ramen, or bowl of anything. A ni-tamago has a fully cooked white but a barely cooked yolk. The yolk is mushy and even runny, kind of the opposite of onsen-tamago. Also, the egg is cool, probably a few degrees below room temperature but the time the bowl gets to you. The outside is slightly brown and tastes like a sweet soy sauce marinade was applied. Taste and texture (again, Japanese and texture) together, cool, sweet, tongue-covering egg in a bowl of hot, steaming ramen was new sensation that was unbelieveably good. Too bad you only get two halves of egg. I tried to solve the problem by cutting the egg in quarters to double my fun. A few nights ago I had a ni-tamago in a bowl of eggplant, pumpkin, and mushroom curry soup. The cool egg with the hot and spicy curry was even better than with the ramen. This curry was outstanding, halves of japanese eggplant roasted very tender with the skins scored. This served two purposes; make the eggplant easier to eat and helped catch the curried broth. There where two hunks, yes, hunks, of mushrooms. Like still on the stalk. Maiitake and Honshimeiji. They were so strongly flavored that they were able to hold up to the spiciness of the curry. Here is a recipe I found for ni-tamago.