Last week I made the Oyakodon recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

Like the previous recipe, Tamago-Kake Gohan, Oyakodon is a rice bowl with egg, but also with chicken and broth.

The ingredients optionally call for mitsuba, described as a parsley-like Japanese herb. I couldn’t find this at either of my two closest international markets, YDFM and First Oriental. I didn’t make the trek to the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market to look. Kenji advises to omit if you can’t find it, so that’s what I did.

The recipe is straightforward: simmer chicken and onions in dashi enriched with soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar. When the chicken is done, drizzle in some lightly beaten eggs. Let the eggs simmer for a few more minutes. The egg and chicken mixture is served in a bowl over rice and garnished with scallions and togarashi.

While this dish went over much better than the Tamago-Kake Gohan, it still wasn’t a hit. My wife said it was fine (rating it 3 stars over the Tamago-Kake Gohan’s 2 stars). I thought it was pretty good, especially given how easy it was to pull together. I would give it 4 stars. It definitely benefited from the togarashi; it was a bit bland without it.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.