Common Anime food: Tamagoyaki!

Think about the anime you’ve watched, how many times have you seen tamagoyaki (friend egg rolls)? Too many times, probably.

It got me thinking then, how hard is it to make it? I’ll be honest, I’m not a good cook nor do I cook all too often. Even so, I researched and tried to make this. Happily though, it turned out to be very easy to make and even though I can’t cook it well, I’m going to tell you how to make it!

Recipe and pictures after the jump!

Ingredients: (This will give you two decent size rolls)

- 4 eggs

- 2 tablespoon of sugar (could be adjusted to your own liking)

- 3 table spoon of Daishi*

- 1 tea spoon of soy sauce

- 1 tea spoon of Mirin**

- A pinch of salt

- Any cooking oil will work, but stay away from using butter.

* Daishi is a type of Japanese soup stock. You probably can find them at any Asian super markets. If you don’t have any, don’t worry too much about it. You can still make Tamagoyaki without it. In fact, it’ll be easier to make because your eggs aren’t as runny and delicate when you are rolling them up (although it will be less tasty).

**Mirin is Japanese sweet rice wine. Again, not really needed. In fact, I haven’t tried using it. Some recipe I see doesn’t even include this.

Materials:

- A brush or paper towel to spread oil in the pan

- Two pairs of chopsticks/Two forks (or only one if you are very skillful at rolling the eggs)

- A non-stick pan. It doesn’t need to be big. I personally use a 7″ non-stick pot for this because I lack a square or small frying pan.

Procedure:

1. Crack the four eggs into a bowl, dump the rest of the ingredients in, and beat the mixture until everything is assimilated nicely.

You should end up with a mixture similar looking to this. (Maybe try beating it till a bit more even…)

2. Put your pan on the stove, put the heat on low – medium (Just enough to slowly make the egg solid), and brush some oil evenly on to the pan. Then spread the mixture thinly at the bottom of the pan.

3. Wait patiently until the base of the egg is solid, then slowly and carefully ‘roll’ the egg up evenly. (This is where if you are skillful, you can use one chopstick to do it. I have to use two forks for this part because the chopstick tips are too fat to slide them under the egg without breaking it.)

4. Once the egg is rolled up to one side of the pan, re-oil the part of the pan that’s free. Then spread more mixture thinly on the free side on the pan and make sure that the mixture is also touching the egg roll that you just rolled up. As the mixture solidifies again, roll the egg roll inside the solidifying mixture to make the roll thicker.

Brush oil onto the free part of the pan

Put the mixture where you oiled it and roll the egg back towards you.

5. Repeat step 4 until all your mixture is used up. Done!

The finished product!

It’s all swirly inside! =P

Well now, wasn’t that easy and fun to make? You might notice that mine doesn’t quite look anime-ish, and that’s because life isn’t an anime. That and, I used a pot instead of a square pan, I was also a little hastey and had the stove on too hot. You can add other ingredients into the mixture if you like, such as lettuce or crabsticks to make it colorful and all. That’s it for today, over and out!

 

p.s.: I’m not responsible for any kitchen fires if you can’t cook >_>;