Natto Egg Rice
This is a dish that came about through pure curiousity. Curiousity of flavour, of texture, of unhinged culinary combinations.
It’s a dish based on one of my all time favourite recipe videos, “How to Cook From Tokyo's Vending Machines”. In the video, the eccentric host, Ty Demura, bumbles through Tokyo, buys a handful of ingredients from vending machines (and drops some), then brings it back to his tiny apartment kitchen to cook two of his hangover specials. One of these was a natto egg rice, made with a bare 4 ingredients (natto, egg, rice, and soy sauce) and whipped together in less time than it took to take the ingredients out of the box. That’s the premise of the video, but oh it is so much more. The feelings this video made me feel were unlike anything I’ve ever felt from watching any other food videos. Never have I cycled through laughter, shock, culinary curiousity, and horror quicker than in the 8 minutes and 45 seconds the video ran for. But before I spoil it any further, please go watch it and find out the fun for yourself.
After watching the video, I was oddly inspired by Ty’s natto egg rice dish. So I took his base ingredients of natto, egg, rice, and soy sauce, and made a few pimped-up adjustments. Instead of a raw egg, I went the extra mile and made onsen eggs, cooking them low and slow till the yolks turn custard-like. Instead of the typical takeaway rice left for days in the back of the fridge, I deliberately made sushi rice and chilled it overnight. Instead of just soy sauce, I bolstered the umami of the dish with seaweed and bonito flakes. The one thing I didn’t tamper with was the heart of the dish—natto, the stinky, snotty, fermented soy beans beloved by the Japanese. There’s nothing quite like it, and there’s nothing that should be done to it. So I kept mine the same as Ty’s.
At this point, you’re forgiven if you think this is a joke of a recipe. (This recipe is released on April Fool’s Day, after all.) But really, I’m using April Fool’s Day as a front to experiment with the absurd, without getting vilified for it. Heh.
Because truly, this dish surprised me, in more ways than one. To start, the texture is odd, to say the least. Think foamy eggs threaded through with the stringy snottiness of natto and squishy pops of sushi rice. The frigid temperature of the whole dish was the next thing that struck me as unnatural when I was slurping down the dish. And most importantly, and unexpectedly, the taste, was a truly delightful surprise. It’s one that, like the video, you’ll just have to find out the fun for yourself. 😉
Natto Egg Rice
Makes 1
Ingredients
100g (1/2 cup) short-grain sushi rice
120ml (1/2 cup) water
10ml (2 teaspoons) sushi seasoning or rice vinegar
2 onsen eggs, or soft-boiled eggs
30ml (2 tablespoons) soy sauce
35g (2 tablespoons) natto
5g (1 tablespoon) nori, chopped thin
1g (1/2 tablespoon) bonito flakes
Directions
Cook Rice: I know us Asians have our own favourite ways of cooking rice, measuring with our fingers and cooking it in trusty rice cooker. But with such a small amount of rice, I find cooking it in a small pot or saucepan works best. So, first off, rinse the rice 2-3 times to wash out the excess starch. Then, pour the rice into a small pot together with the water, and bring it to a rapid boil. As soon as it boils, turn the heat down to low, cover the pot with a lid, and let the rice cook at a gentle simmer for 12-15 minutes. When the rice is done, remove it from the heat and let it cool, covered, for 10 minutes. After that, add the sushi seasoning into the rice and give the rice a few gentle folds to spread out the seasoning. Then, chill the rice in the fridge for at least 1 hour, or overnight, until cold.
Cook egg: To make onsen egg, cook the egg in a pot of water for 45 minutes at a constant 63°C. Alternatively, to make soft-boiled eggs, simmer them for 6 minutes. Either way you choose, when they’re done cooking, plunge them into cold water to stop the cooking process, and keep them in the fridge for at least 1 hour, or overnight, until cold.
Put it all together: Mix the soy sauce in with the rice, giving it a few gentle folds like you did with the vinegar. Then, portion the rice into a bowl, and top with the egg, and natto, and garnish with shreds of nori and bonito flakes.
Eat: To eat, mix everything all together with a pair of chopsticks until it turns gloopy and foamy, then slurp away!
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