Omuraisu

Omuraisu (omelette-rice) is a very popular dish in Japan. It is a sort of Japanese adaptation of western-style food, if you will. Basically an omelette stuffed with fried rice and topped with ketchup. The fun part is that everyone can do his own Omuraisu and compete for the most successful one. The outcome looks sometimes pathetic because the last steps are somewhat tricky. But fun, trust me....
A vos casseroles.

For 2 Omuraisu:

- vegetable oil, 1-2 tablespoon
- 1/2 onion, finely chopped
- 5 eggs
- pinch of salt, pinch of sugar
- 50-100g chicken thighs, or sausage, or bacon, or a mix of it, any meat you want to put in the fried rice, really. Chopped into 1cm cubes.
- 3-6 mushrooms, or any vegetable you want to put in the fried rice. Chopped.
- about 120g steamed rice, cooked the day before works best.
- white wine, about 2 tablespoons
- oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon (optional)
- ketchup, about 4 tablespoons
- salt, pepper

Heat up 1tbsp of oil in a hot frying pan or a wok. Saute' the onions until transparent, then add the chicken (or other meat), and when it is browned throw in the mushrooms (or other vegies). Add white whine, salt, pepper, oyster sauce, ketchup. Incorporate the cooked rice little by little and mix well. Check the seasoning, and set aside.
Slightly beat the eggs in a bowl with a pinch of salt and sugar.
Warm up another tbsp of oil in a new frying pan (not a wok this time!) over medium heat. Pour in half of the egg mixture (for one person). Spread the egg quickly while moving the frying pan back and forth. When it is half cooked, place the rice mixture in, offset to one side.
And now comes the difficult part:
Take the pan off the heat and fold the chicken rice mixture free side of the Omuraisu almost all the way over the chicken rice mixture.
Roll the Omuraisu in the pan by raising one side and tapping the handle so as to gradually wrap the rice inside the omelette.
Keep rolling slowly until the edges of the Ouraisu are again facing up, and then roll once more onto the plate it is to be served upon.

The Omuraisu should have it's edges facing down in the final position, so as to appear to be a regular omelette. Top with ketchup.
As you can see on the photos, M. wins the competition with a quite professional Omuraisu, while H's Omuraisu looks a bit more sad. No, actually it was the other way around, as you probably guessed.
Talent requires practice....