Friday food treat: Tamagoyaki
Tamagoyaki is Japanese omelette. The word “tamagoyaki” means literally “grilled egg”. It is made by rolling together layers of cooked egg in a rectangular pan called a makiyakinabe.
What’s in a Japanese omelette?
Tamagoyaki is made from eggs and sugar and soy sauce. Sometimes sage and mirin are added. Alternative versions include shrimp puree and/or grated mountain yam.
How is it served?
Often this dish is served with rice – in sushi rolls. Sometimes it is a breakfast dish. It can form part of a sushi/sashimi dishes.
How is it made?
The omelette mixture is poured into the rectangular pan and allowed to cook. Then, it is rolled to one end and more omelette batter is added to the pan, cooked and the roll is rolled back, picking up an extra layer. This continues until the batter is all used up.
To serve?
The omelette roll is placed on a cutting board and cut – into chunks or into slices across the roll. The preference depends on your serving requirements.
It is a tasty dish and not hard to prepare – but requires some skill. The demonstrations I have seem include using cooking chopsticks to manipulate the layer of egg. My skill with chopsticks was tested with this – probably have not done it enough times to master it. It was tasty though – if not beautifully presented. Itadakimasu!