The Japanese Homestyle Cooking Project

Oyakodon (or Japanese Chicken And Egg Over Rice), recipe via Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat.

One of the best ways to begin to feel comfortable in a culture I think, is to make its food. Hello, grocery store that no longer stocks the ingredients I am used to. How much more at ease am I going to feel when we go shopping and I'm all, yes, I do need these ingredients on all these shelves because I am cooking a Japanese meal at home.

(Rather than my often defeated feeling spagetti - which, I do have ZERO qualms about making, I'm all for maintaining my heritage, and I'm incredibly grateful for the wide variety of foods I have grown up with, BUT, try walking into a supermarket in Japan to make spagetti. It's not impossible, but it's as if every shelf is staring down at you until you find that tiny selection of pasta and a few sauces, as opposed to the entire half aisle I was used to in Sydney.)

Setting myself up for a win each day.

By attempting to make Japanese food.

A few people have also asked me to include some Japanese cooking on the blog. And I loved Julie and Julia, the movie based on the book/blog about a woman who worked her way through Julia Child's Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.

So, I've picked Naomi Moriyama's Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat cookbook and general commentary on the insanely healthy lifestyle of Japanese (men and women), to cook my way through.

It is graciously in English. Written by a Japanese woman, who lives in the USA, and who greatly believes that Japanese home cooking is the source of some of the world's best kept secrets.

As the blurb on the back of her book says, paraphrase, Japanese people are amongst those with the longest life span in the world, their country has next to no obesity, and women in their 40's look as though they are in their 20s.

Hello. Yes.

I can totally vouch for that. I am constantly assuming the people I meet are 10-20 (!) years younger than they are.

Ok Kirrily, less writing, more cooking.

The first recipe I tried, I totally cheated, because I have made it a billion times before in Australia, and so many more times since being here. So no disastrous stories here today - though I am sure they await me in future pages...

Basically, Jesse once told me he loved this meal, and I love home cooking, and it is easy, and warm, and delicious (and apparently long-life enhancing).

Here's how it went in photos:

Oyakodon (or Japanese Chicken And Egg Over Rice)

Your basic ingredients, dashi (fish stock), sake, mirin, soy sauce, eggs, negi (Japanese spring onion-meets-leek, either one would work fine), onion, chicken, salt and sugar.

Got the dashi going with sake...

Added the negi and onion and let them cook.

Added the mirin, soy sauce, sugar and salt...

Then added the chicken, to essentially poach it for a few minutes (I like putting the lid on to keep the broth in there, but you could leave the lid off and let it reduce for a less sauce-y version).

Once almost cooked, I whisked the eggs up and poured them gently over the top.

 Grab a bowl of rice (which is seriously as simple as 'grab a bowl of rice' if you live in Japan and have your rice cooker almost constantly on everyday).

Cooked! (Like shamefully easy, right?) A bowl of an extra few years on your life. You're welcome. Plus, it is So. Freaking. Delicious.

Itadakimasu!