Master Japan's Hardest Dish At Home

There's a reason they call this the world's hardest omelet. There are three parts to omurice. The rice, the egg, and the sauce. And we're gonna start by quickly making our sauce, also known as demi-glace. We'll turn the heat to medium and add some neutral oil along with our chopped shallots and green onions. This sauce, as well as the rice we'll make in just a moment, are both very important in this dish because there's no seasoning in the egg. So this is our chance to really build that flavor. Once the onions start to get some color and nice caramelization, we'll add our carrots, celery, and garlic, and after about a minute more of stirring, in goes our tomato paste, which we need to caramelize to develop that deep umami flavor. De-glaze with some red wine, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot to make sure you capture all that flavor. And once that's reduced down to a glaze, add in your beef stock. I'll move this off to the side to reduce and thicken, and now we'll make our roux. The roux is a simple mixture of butter and flour that'll help to thicken our sauce and give it a nice, silky consistency. We're specifically making a golden roux. We just keep stirring this until we get a golden color, which, in addition to thickening our sauce, will give flavor. It almost smells like cookies. Once our demi-glaze has reduced down by about half, we'll strain it directly into our golden roux and whisk over medium-low until it becomes smooth and starts to thicken up. Once you get to a place where it looks something like this, make any final seasoning adjustments, turn off the heat, and set it aside. With our sauce done, the second component is a fried rice. Into a wok over high heat, we'll add some oil, and once it begins to smoke, I'll toss in some chopped chicken thighs and stir until we get some golden color. Then I'll add in some chopped mushrooms and onion and stir until the onions become translucent, and then push all those ingredients off to one side, and once the pan has a chance to get nice and hot, add in some ketchup and stir to caramelize. Ketchup may not sound right, but it's authentic. If you leave it raw, it's sharp and sweet, whereas caramelized ketchup develops a deep, tangy, and umami flavor. To finish, we'll add some Worcestershire sauce and then crumple in some day-old rice. Day-old rice is important because it's dry enough that all the grains will hold their individual shape. And once fully combined, turn off the heat, add in a little bit of fresh parsley, and finish with just a few cubes of butter to make it nice and glossy. Between this and the sauce we made earlier, we now have all the flavor we'd ever need, and now we just need the texture. So the final step is the omelet. Everything with omurice happens in about 90 seconds, but I'm gonna slow it down and explain to you where everything goes wrong, and then you just might have a shot at being able to actually make it. First, you must fully beat your eggs. If you leave any streaks in there, it basically increases the chance that there are weak points in your omelet, which increases the chances that it splits apart. Next, strain the eggs. This is how we get them super smooth and silky, and do not season them with anything. Even salt will mess with the texture and ruin your omurice. Now, cover this with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge overnight to let the eggs relax. Before cooking the omurice, we wanna have our rice and sauce ready to go. As I'm sure you might have seen, the second you finish making the omelet, you lay it carefully over the rice. And to get that nice shot where you cut it open, you need to cut quickly. Once we've packed our rice into the mold and set it on the plate, and our sauce is warming up off to the side, we can begin making our omelet. As you can see, I'm using this special omurice pan, but you can also make it with a normal pan at home. Now, the first thing we have to nail is the temperature. If it's too hot, the egg will scramble or burn. You won't get that silky texture. But if it's too cold, it'll stick to the pan too easily. When in doubt, go on the cooler side than the hotter side. Once you put a streak of egg and it sizzles up like this, you've got your temp right. Egg in immediately. I'm whisking fast and scraping on the edges of my pan. We wanna break it up into tons and tons of tiny little curds. And then once it almost looks a little bit like jelly, I'll move it off the heat. Tap down hard a couple times to let it settle. And now I'll trade my chopsticks for a rubber spatula. And using that rubber spatula, I'll begin folding from the side closest to me. Once it gets close to the front, I'll lay this flat again, then scrape the side away from me. And the goal here is to have the two edges meet to create a seam. And in one confident motion, that's the part that's tricky. With a proper omurice, you end up with sort of an oval football type shape. Now we just wanna press down and seal the corners. If you ever find a spot that looks like it's gonna split open, you can always move it back over the heat like this. And before we lay it on our rice, we'll flip it over once more. We wanna see the seam side up, then move immediately over to your rice. And using some kind of guide, I like to use my hand, slide it ever so carefully right over the top of your rice. This is a balancing act. Then cut in with your knife on one side and go from one end to the other. It should flap open like this. Then top it off with sauce and freshly chopped chives and dig in. By the way, if any of you were actually able to pull this off at home, I am incredibly impressed. Mm, so much more umami than I thought there would be. The egg is pure texture. Not that much flavor in the egg. The flavor comes from the sauce and the rice. It's funny because I always thought it was one of those dishes that looked so much better than it probably tasted, but I think that bite just changed my mind. All of that said, unless you own a farm with unlimited eggs, I probably wouldn't try this one at home.