Which came first:
The tamagoyaki, or the tamagoyaki pan?
I’m pretty sure in the 1700s, simpletons were eating eggs like simpletons - boiled, fried, poached, scrambled, straight from the shell.
Then this dude (or dame) emerged from his kitchen, through the mist made from dry ice, holding his own rectangular pan: “I have revolutionised the tamago - you spread a thin layer on my special pan here, flip it on itself, roll and repeat until it is no longer tamago, but a tree, with logs, containing only the spririt of tamago. Do you yield? Do you love me now, father?”
And father said: “that's interesting Toshi (or Tomoe), but when are you going to come home and take over the family business?”
(Note: may not be historically accurate.)
Instead, the FOMO caught on. Since then, to every Japanese’s annoyance, they had to learn this method of making eggs to qualify as an acceptable parent slash bento maker for the children.
To prove how seriously they take tamagoyaki, here’s another Japanese chart / ultimate guide to purchasing tamagoyaki pans.
It is the Japanese way of saying: look, even our eggs work harder than yours.
So, the secret ingredient to making nice tamagoyakis, is practice.
I know, it's a downer.
The upside is, eggs aren't expensive.
A tray will deal you what, $20 worth of damage? Compared to brunch and coffee, my daughter's so-called music enlightenment lessons (seriously, I do not know what that even means), that's negligible.
Are you telling me you can drop $500 on cryptocurrency workshop and not $20 and a square pan on self-improvement?
Come on, try spending an hour or so flipping eggs to some Miles Davis. Pretend you run a Japanese cafe for a while.
You don’t even need the special pan; a normal pan will do. Just cut both ends off. No one is looking.
Feed them to your pets.
Chill, thinly slice, on top of rice.
Toss into noodles.
Salads.
It's basically therapy.
The seasoning really depends on your personal taste.
The Kanto region (Tokyo etc) likes it sweet and salty made with a square pan; the Kinki region (Osaka, Kyoto etc) likes their tamagoyaki juicier mixed with stock with a rectangular pan, served along with grated radish. They label them with names like ‘atsuyaki’ or ‘dashimaki’, but eggs are eggs. I've seen seaweed, onions, ham, pickles in tamagoyaki, some sushi establishments even grate prawns.
For a staple recipe on a 9cm wide pan, I crack 2 eggs, and sprinkle 1 tsp each of sugar, soy sauce, and stock per egg. (Depending on the egg size, your mileage may vary.)
The internet housewives say to whisk or do some zig-zaggy thing with your chopsticks, but here's my secret for the paid subscribers:
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