Lina Takahashi Eats
In Japanese, “oyako” means “parent and child” and “don” is a word for rice bowl — so the translation for one of the ultimate Japanese comfort foods of chicken and egg is indeed, “parent & child rice bowl”…don’t let the name of this bowl deter you, though! I promise once you take a bite, it will become a regular weekly lunch or dinner option! The soft egg with the chicken in the dashi flavoring will keep you wanting to make this easy, yet satisfying dish again and again.
There actually is an answer in this case — the chicken! The hardest part of this dish is cutting the chicken and onions — that’s it! Once that is over, mix together your dashi base ingredients and you’re ready to cook it all together. If you don’t have access to dashi powder, feel free to use chicken stock powder.
The starch you use to coat the chicken helps to prevent the chicken from becoming too dry. It will also make the dashi flavor stick to the chicken when simmering it in the dashi base.
Pro-tip: Make sure to only cook the eggs just enough that the edges are solid, but still runny! This helps the egg coat the chicken, onions and rice which eat bite!
Lastly, adding green onions as a garnish not only makes the dish look fancier, but the green onion flavor is crucial to this oyakodon! If you don’t have any green onions, feel free to add chives, or even seaweed.
Time to itadakimas while it’s still hot!
