What do you cook for yourself?

An egg and some rice

I’d say that I like to cook. I went through a phase of baking at least three chiffon cakes a week and have hosted people for dinner several times within the last year (so I guess not often), but there are stretches of time where I can barely assemble a stir fry¹. This is one of those times. It’s summer in New York and I will choose the kimchi mandu from the wine bar² over anything that comes off of my stove every single time.

TKG with bonito flakes

Tamagokakegohan (TKG)

Three words in Japanese that become such an eyeful in English letters - tamago kake gohan (egg over rice)³. Japanese media abbreviates it to TKG, so I will do the same. It’s the combination that I eat most often when I’m not eating peanut butter Puffins⁴.

I have been accused of being Japan-centric in my thinking (whatttt), so I will come out ahead here and say that any culture with eggs and rice has at some point put the two together. Korean gyeran bap (at least in this Eric Kim iteration) uses an actual fried egg, which I’m sure is delicious. According to Japanese Wikipedia, pouring a raw egg on top of rice and eating it is uniquely Japanese⁵. The result can be pretty gloopy, and I can see the cooked egg versions being more palatable to those who did not crow up with Japanese TKG.

While TKG is now incredibly prevalent in Japan (there are so many YouTube videos on this - see below), it took a while for the country to come on board with eating eggs. Back to Japanese Wikipedia, but the country’s Buddhist inclinations meant that the consumption of eggs was forbidden for quite some time although domesticated chickens were first brought to Japan during the Yayoi period. The first recorded event of egg over rice apparently occurred in 1805, as consumption of eggs became more prevalent thanks to the influence of countries like Portugal.⁶

While the simplest form of TKG is just a raw egg cracked over a bowl of warm rice (preferably freshly cooked, but can also be microwaved until piping hot) with shoyu. It can be as cheap or as expensive (I mean, relatively. Even the nicest greenmarket egg from my quick survey of Union Square barely costs $1) as you like: Yoshinoya offers a raw egg and a bowl of rice as part of their absurdly cheap breakfast special⁷. On the other hand, a ryokan can also offer an egg (usually soft poached - onsen) alongside the multiple dishes that make up your breakfast. 

How do you TKG

TKG for me must come together in the 30 seconds that it takes to microwave my rice and my egg. I unapologetically microwave my eggs because I don’t like the runniness of the raw egg white and I am too lazy to dirty a pan to fry my egg.  

1. Scoop desired amount of rice into a bowl

2. Microwave for 30 seconds 

3. Crack egg on top of rice - microwave for another 15-20 seconds. 

4. Cover with something (shoyu, salt, furikake - or natto/kimchi and shiso if I have it) 

5. Eat with a spoon

Curious how other people eat TKG - or their version of egg with rice.

TKG Variations

Japan is obsessed with TKG and the Internet being the Internet, the TKG has taken on many other variations. I poked around Japanese YouTube to find:

1. Separate the eggs and cook the egg white as a thin crepe. Pop the yolk on top, add a pat of butter, and fold the edges of the egg white crepe over the yolk⁸.

2. Separate the egg and mix the egg white thoroughly with the hot rice to half set the white. Add olive oil (!?) and ajinomoto (MSG). Add the yolk and shoyu on top. 

3. Whip the egg white into a stiff froth and top with yolk and shoyu.

   

TKG with whipped egg white.

I burned out of Japanese YouTube at this point, but there are many many more pages of TKG variations.

In addition, there are shops throughout Japan devoted to serving TKG, one of which is in the basement of Haneda Airport. The concept of going out to eat something so simple feels ridiculous, but then I remember the queues outside of the cereal cafe on Brick Lane (permanently closed). The shop in question, Akasaka Umaya (note: Tabelog is basically Japanese Yelp and anything above a 3.4 is excellent. A 5 star rating is basically unheard of) is a vendor for the Uchino Tamago brand of eggs. Their website describes a chicken idyll of free roaming chickens in the clean air of Fukuoka prefecture. You decide how much of this pretty picture you want to believe, but again, the shop’s Tabelog rating is quite high!⁹

Akasaka Uchinoya’s pile of pedigreed eggs

And now onto dessert

A couple of months ago, I trekked around New York eating Japanese parfaits and speaking with the very interesting people behind them.¹⁰ That piece is now on Eater New York, should you care to check it out.

Momoya Soho’s strawberry parfait from earlier this year. They are currently serving blueberry.

In addition to the parfaits listed in the article, I have heard of Japanese parfaits being served at.

• Hi-Collar

• Yopparai

• Shalom Japan

• Flipper’s

• Sweets Laboratory

Please comment if you have any additions to this list!

1. Chortle and I are sharing a CSA. It is an absolutely amazing CSA for which I am extremely grateful. It provides enough vegetables for 2-3 dinners that I actually cook (stir fries) every week. Otherwise, I’m fairly confident that I would not be cooking at all.

2. Gomi, I love you forever.

3. Kazu of the ramen eggs suggested that I write about TKG, even though I was like, it’s just eggs over rice what do I even say!? But having seen the volume of YouTube videos (some of them are 20+ minutes long) on the subject, it is clear that there is a lot that can be said.

4. The greatest cereal!

5. This piece marvels at how “foreigners” (Japan uses the catch-all 海外 for any country that is not Japan) will not eat raw eggs and also notes that the risk of food poisoning from raw egg consumption is virtually nonexistent in Japan.

6. Leading to the adaption of egg-based sweets like castella and boro.

7. The cheapest option looks to be 438 yen. This used to be around 4 USD, but I can’t keep up with the rapid spiral of the yen. Needless to say, the 438 yen is worth much less in June 2022.

8. I understand that this is absolutely a matter of taste, but I do not understand what appears to be a very Japanese trend of putting butter and/or mayonnaise (AND/OR KETCHUP!) on anything and everything.

9. I stumbled across this egg tasting by Kenji Lopez Alt, who basically summarized that people cannot tell apart eggs if they all look the same.

10. I feel like so many people these days claim to not have much of a sweet tooth, but my caloric intake is 80 percent ice cream. You can reliably find me after 8pm at Van Leeuwen, Malai, or Sundaes and Cones.