Unwrapping The Year With Omurice

Omurice, a combination of the words ‘omelette’ (omu) and ‘rice’, is a relatively common dish found not just in Japan, where it originated from, but also in other parts of East and Southeast Asia such as Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. This dish was supposedly brought over to Korea first during the Japanese occupation in the late 19th century before it began spreading widely to the other parts of the region.

All thanks to the Korean drama ‘Rooftop Prince‘, I started to notice the appeal of this dish. In one of the scenes in the show, a kind lady, upon meeting a prince and his escorts who travelled forward in time from the Chosun Dynasty, cooked omurice for all of them out of pity. In just a few seconds, the group of hungry time-travellers gobbled and lapped up everything. That particular scene made omurice an immediate priority on my list of must-try delicacies.

This dish challenged me in a way that no other dishes have before. I am used to cooking rice in omelette using the ‘half-moon’ method, i.e. flipping half the omelette over the rice and serving it as such. This way of serving fried rice – wrapped up in soft, fluffy and half-cooked omelette all around – has got to be my first time. Believe me not, it was certainly not as easy as it looked; it took me more than two attempts to get the rice all tucked in nicely on the plate. The superb taste, however, was definitely worth all the perspiration and effort!

Ingredients:

• Oil: 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp
• Small white onion: 1, chopped
• White mushroom: 4, sliced
• Hot dog: 2, sliced
• Frozen green peas: 1/2 cup, defrost
• Canned tomato: 200g
• Ketchup: 1 tbsp
• Chicken stock cube: 1/2, sliced
• Rice wine: 1 tbsp
• Cooked rice: 2 bowls (from 1 1/2 cups of uncooked rice)
• Salt: to taste
• Ground blackpepper: to taste
• Egg: 4
• Milk: 2 tbsp
• Grated parmesan cheese: 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok. Fry onions till soft and translucent.
2. Add mushrooms, hot dogs and peas into wok. Fry for 1 min.
3. Add canned tomato, ketchup, stock cube and rice wine.
4. Add rice, salt and pepper.  Stir to mix evenly.
5. Remove from heat and set aside.
6. Prepare omelette by beating eggs with milk, cheese, a pinch of salt and pepper.
7. Heat 1 tbsp oil in wok.
8. Add 1/2 of beaten egg mixture into frying pan.
9. Tilt pan to make a large round omelette.  Leave to cook on low heat for 15 sec.
10. Spoon half the amount of fried rice onto center of omelette.
11. Using the stirrer, flip the edges of the omelette up to cover the sides of the rice while the egg is still half-cooked.
12. Bring omelette to the edge of the pan. Flip it very quickly over and onto a plate, omelette side up.
13. Place paper towel over omelette. Press gently to form oval shape.
14. Drizzle with ketchup to serve.

Tricks:

• Once the omelette becomes fully cooked, you will not be able to flip the edges over the rice as these firm edges will flip back onto the pan.
• Make sure the rice is still warm when it is placed onto the omelette so that the inside of the half-cooked omelette will continue to cook after it is removed from the pan.

Disclaimer:

• This recipe was kindly adapted from ‘Cooking with dog‘ which uses chicken meat instead of hot dog for the rice and which does not have cheese in the omelette mixture too.

Serving:
2 persons

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