poached egg bbq rice, or: omurice 9.0

One of my favorite food-related movies of all time is Tampopo. You meet lots of different people with all kinds of bizarre relationships with/involving food. In one of many bizarre scenes, a little boy meets a random hobo and they break into a restaurant at night and make this dish called omurice. Makes perfect sense, right? Right. But it's wonderful.





Now, I've been to Japan a couple times but I've never had an actual omurice so I am making nooooo claims about anything involving "authenticity" here. But I'm not a half bad cook, and that food looks comforting as hell, so I set about making my own version. It's been through a few different incarnations, and what I have finally settled on as "my" omurice bears very little resemblance to the original inspiration in the film. Here's what mine looks like, and I've included the method below, and even with a little video I made on how to poach an egg.







There are two parts to the recipe: the rice and the egg. I typically get the rice started and a couple minutes later move over to make the egg so they get done at about the same time.




to make one omurice 9.0:
ingredients:


1 tsp. canola oil
3/4 c. leftover rice - I use Japanese short-grain brown rice, but whatever you have around is fine.


1/8 c. barbecue sauce
a dash of sesame oil
a dash of sriracha


1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. white vinegar
1 egg




for the rice:


Mix bbq sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha together.
Heat canola oil in a small pan over medium-high heat.
Add rice and saute for about 30 seconds.
Add bbq sauce mixture and mix to thoroughly coat the rice. Keep frying this mixture for another 5 minutes or so, until the rice has crisped up a bit.









for the egg:


Fill a large pan with straight sides (or a medium sized sauce pan, although this is easier in something with fairly low sides) with about 1.5 inches of water and place it over high heat.
When the water is steaming significantly but not boiling, stir in salt and vinegar.
Crack your egg into a small dish such as a small prep bowl or ramekin.
Carefully slide the egg into the water and immediately put a lid on the pan.
Leave it alone for 3-5 minutes. (It depends on how firm or runny you like your yolk. I'm a 4 minute kind of gal - some runnyness, but definitely cooked.)
Slide a spatula under the egg and carefully lift it straight up out of the water, and tip the spatula slowly and ever so slightly to each side to let any excess water run off.
Slide the egg carefully on top of the rice on the plate, and dig in!




If there's any confusion about the egg poaching, don't get frustrated - it's hard. Here's a little video I made that might help. My method is pretty much like what Mark Bittman describes in How to Cook Everything, but this may not work for you. If you find something else to be easier, please share! (Oh and don't judge my video too harshly, please. I may take okay photographs but I'm a real crap videographer, and since I was the only one home when I was doing this I was not about to poach 9087 eggs to get just the right take. Oh, and I introduce myself at the beginning because I also made this video for the "Hi, I'm..." video group on flickr!)







I hope you enjoy the recipe!