How to make ONSEN-TAMAGO (hot spring cooked eggs) 〜温泉卵〜 | easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Taiji's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make onsen tamago. So the name onsen tamago, onsen means hot spring and tamago is egg in Japanese. So what it is, is eggs cooked in hot springs. So the difference with a regular boiled egg is that boiled eggs or all the white is fully cooked and egg yolk, depending on how you like it, is either fully cooked or half runny or runny. But with the onsen tamago, egg yolk and egg white are kind of like softly cooked. And this depends on how, at different temperature, egg yolk and egg white firm due to its different protein content. Egg white starts solidifying around 60 degrees and be really firm at 80 degrees, whereas egg yolk starts solidifying around 70 degrees and really firm up at 75 degrees. And so how you want to make it is that you want to keep the steady temperature of around 70 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes and then you have onsen tamago. If you have a sous vide, those low temperature cooker, then it's really easy. You just set it to 70 degrees and set it for 15 to 20 minutes. But like me, most people don't have those special machine. So I'm going to show you a very easy variation of how to make this using just regular pot. And this is also something that you can use as a topping for pretty much any dish. This matches very well with udon or ramen noodle, but also other recipe like curry rice or mabo tofu or, and you can also use it as a topping for salad. And so what I usually do is I make quite a bunch and then I save the rest in the fridge and use it for the next couple of days. This will last in the fridge for about three to five days. And today I'm going to show you three variations of the sauces. So I hope this gives you a new idea for your cooking and I hope you give this a try. Then let's get started. Here are the ingredients for onsen tamago. Well actually for the onsen tamago you just need eggs, but today I'll be making two other variations of the sauces. So one of the sauces that is similar to mentsuyu, I'll be making with sugar, soy sauce, dashi powder, and a little bit of nori seaweed. And the second variation is a little bit more Korean style, I'll be making with sesame oil and kimchi. So for those who don't know, kimchi is a Korean-style pickled napa cabbage and I also have a video on that. So if you want to know how to make it yourself, you can check that out. But nowadays many Asian supermarkets carry these so maybe you'll be able to find those in a package. Then let's start cooking. We're going to first make the sauces. So the first mentsuyu, if you have a mentsuyu bottle, then you can use that directly, but I'm going to show you how to make that first. So in a container, about two teaspoons of water, and then about half a teaspoon of soy sauce, about a quarter to half a teaspoon of sugar, depending on how sweet you want to make it, and also in this, about a pinch of dashi powder. Just about that much. If you're a vegetarian, you can skip this, but this will just kind of give it a little more savoriness to it. And once everything is dissolved, and now our dashi sauce or the mentsuyu sauce is finished. Now let's cut up the kimchi. Those are kind of small diced pieces. And this is finished for that. And for the nori seaweed, I'm just going to rip it in small pieces. Just like that. Now let's cook the eggs. So in order to make onsen tamago properly, you need to actually keep the 65 to 75 degrees temperature. But unless you have a sous vide at home, it's quite difficult to maintain that temperature. So I'm going to show you a very quick technique. So in a pot, I'm going to put in about a liter of water, which is four cups. Then I'm going to turn the heat to high and bring this to boil. So once this comes to boil, that means this has reached 100 degrees Celsius. I'm going to turn the heat off. And in this, I'm going to add in half a cup of cold water so that this reaches about 90 degrees or so. And this, we're going to add in the eggs. So try not to drop it. So I'm going to use a spoon like this and slowly put it in the water, just like that. In this way, with the eggs, you'll reach about like 80 degrees or so, and as the time goes, the heat kind of emits to the surrounding and it'll reach around 70 degrees in five to 10 minutes or so. And so we're going to put the lid back on and set the timer to 15 minutes and let this cook like this. And then we just have to wait. So 15 minutes has passed. So you can't really see how it's cooked from outside. I'm going to put it into cold water and we're going to let it cool off for like five more minutes or so. So about five minutes has passed. The egg has cooled off. So just note that today I used just regular sized egg. If you have a bigger egg or if you want to make a bigger portion, you want to increase the amount of water accordingly. Let's see how this turned out. Oh yeah, look at that. That is one perfect medium cooked onsen tamago. Let's see the other ones. The first one I'm going to top it with just simple soy sauce, about a half teaspoon or so. And the second one with the mentsuyu sauce or dashi sauce, also about half teaspoon or so. And then I'm going to top it with a little bit of nori seaweed, just like that. And the last one with kimchi and sesame oil. Also about half teaspoon or so. Now this is finished for three types of onsen tamago. Let's eat. Oh, I love onsen tamago. Let's eat. Itadakimasu! Okay, let's start with a standard onsen tamago. Let's see how it looks inside. Oh yeah. It's a little bit harder cooked than I usually like, but this is also good. So this is very difficult to eat with chopsticks, so I'm going to have to slurp. So please bear with me. Itadakimasu! Oh, this half raw egg is so perfect to go with rice. Oh, with the soy sauce, it's also just perfect. Now with the dashi sauce or the mentsuyu, top with a little bit of nori, itadakimasu. Oh, the savoriness of the dashi is also perfect to go with eggs. And now lastly, the Korean style onsen tamago. Itadakimasu! Well, the sesame seeds giving out another layer to the flavor, and also the spiciness of the kimchi has gotten milder because of the creaminess of the eggs. And you can also just kind of mix it like this. So this may not look so appetizing, but nonetheless, it's very delicious. You can also put it on top of the rice. Itadakimasu! Oh, that was so delicious. Oh, I love onsen tamago. So as you saw, making this onsen tamago is very easy. You just have to have the right temperature and just kind of leave it. And so hopefully this onsen tamago will broaden out your repertoire and give you creative ideas for your cooking. If you enjoyed this video, I'd love it if you could give me the thumbs up so this video can be spread out to many people. And also I'm always happy to hear your feedbacks, so please feel free to write anything in the comments. And otherwise, I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Bye!