Professional chef Yuji Haraguchi of Okonomi and Yuji Ramen and home cook Emily are trading ingredients and hitting the kitchen to make each other’s omelet recipe.
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00:00 (scraping)
00:02 Either I am doing this very wrong
00:05 or I'm doing this incredibly correctly
00:07 and everyone can be impressed.
00:09 - Hi, I'm Yuji.
00:11 I'm a professional chef.
00:13 These are my $628 omelet ingredients.
00:17 - Hi, I'm Emily.
00:20 I'm a home cook and these are my $12 omelet ingredients.
00:23 - Bye bye.
00:26 - That's right, go.
00:27 I never loved you anyway.
00:30 - One, two, three, four, five, six ingredients.
00:33 Less is more.
00:34 - What?
00:37 I don't know what this is.
00:38 - For my omelet, I was going to make uni
00:45 and unagi omelets.
00:47 This is a very popular way of eating omelet in Japan.
00:50 I had unagi, which is Japanese freshwater eel.
00:54 - Oh, it's an eel 'cause it's not,
00:56 I thought that was the shape of its body
00:57 but it's like wrapped a little.
00:59 - And abalone, both imported from Japan.
01:03 - Is it like a scallop maybe?
01:05 I'll find out the hard way.
01:06 - I was going to cook this with maitake mushroom
01:09 to make a lovely rice base.
01:11 - Oh, ketchup.
01:12 Okay, this one I know.
01:13 - For my omelet, I had Hokkaido uni,
01:16 pasteurized egg, plus homemade dashi
01:18 made with kombu and katsuobushi.
01:21 - Bonito flakes I know.
01:22 That I've used before.
01:23 - I had sake, honey, and aged balsamic vinegar.
01:27 For unagi, kawayaki demi-glace sauce.
01:29 All topped with grated daikon radish
01:31 and an ikura, which is a salmon roll.
01:33 - This is maybe a giant parsnip?
01:36 - It was going to be very delicious
01:38 and at the same time, very, very difficult.
01:41 Good luck, Emily, you're gonna need it.
01:42 - God, are you there?
01:44 - With Emily's recipes, I have simpler ingredients.
01:47 You might find these in your pantry
01:49 or at local grocery store.
01:50 But with a little technique, we can make them even better.
01:53 If I have to guess, these will probably cost me
01:55 about $12.
01:56 - I got it?
01:57 (bell dings)
01:58 Yes.
01:59 - If I had to guess how much this would all cost,
02:01 I would say $192?
02:06 What the (beep)
02:08 How?
02:09 So this is Chef Yuji's recipe book
02:12 and this is what I'm gonna be making today.
02:15 Unagi and uni omurice.
02:17 It's, I think, pretty famously difficult.
02:20 But like, that's what we're here for, right?
02:23 - For this omurice, Emily is going to have
02:25 a mountain of rice and then she's gonna have
02:28 a very runny omelet on top of it.
02:30 And then she's gonna cut it and then it opens up
02:33 and an egg kind of runs over the rice.
02:35 It's very cool, but technically challenging.
02:39 - So the first thing I'm gonna do is prep my seafood.
02:41 I need to butcher and roast my eel and butcher my abalone.
02:45 This is gonna be great, this is gonna be fine.
02:46 I'm actually not worried.
02:47 We should probably get started right now, though.
02:48 All right, so let's just flip this sucker over.
02:53 Ah, wet.
02:55 Well, that's brainy.
02:57 Looks like a lobotomy.
02:58 - So when you pick up abalone,
03:00 you wonder how to get the meat out.
03:02 Don't worry, it's very easy.
03:04 And you're gonna try to put the spoon
03:06 right in between the shell and the meat
03:09 and then you're gonna go under the meat.
03:11 - Well, this is definitely a first for me,
03:13 but you know what?
03:14 I think that this is gonna go great.
03:16 I am choosing to maintain a positive attitude.
03:18 - As soon as you separate the muscle,
03:20 the whole thing will come out.
03:22 - Look at this shell.
03:22 Oh wow, that is very pretty in there.
03:25 It's kinda iridescent.
03:26 - And then you see there's a liver attached to it,
03:29 so you're gonna remove it.
03:30 - I'll hand the Deliver This back to Chef Yuji
03:32 as a thank you present for this moment in my life.
03:35 - After that, you are going to salt the abalone
03:39 pretty heavily for about five minutes.
03:41 What it does is it actually removes all the slime
03:44 that is in the abalone
03:46 and it will make it much easier to clean.
03:49 - All right, my abalone is doing its thing,
03:51 so now I'm going to focus on the eel.
03:54 Emily's working with this beautiful eel from Japan.
03:56 It comes already clean with the fillet,
03:59 but the head is attached to it,
04:01 so she's gonna have to separate the head from the fillet
04:04 and then she's gonna roast the head
04:06 and actually bone together to make the demi-glace sauce.
04:09 We're going to use every part of the eel.
04:12 - I like the way the head feels.
04:13 Maybe I should have a pet eel.
04:14 Weird thought to have right now.
04:18 I'm just going to broil this and roast the bones.
04:21 How long do bones roast?
04:23 I'll check it in five to seven minutes
04:24 and then see what happens after that.
04:26 - All of the seafood that you prep
04:28 will be made into dice.
04:30 Abalone a little bit smaller and an eel a little bit larger.
04:33 - My eel is diced.
04:34 I'm gonna move back to my abalone.
04:36 - Wanna make sure that you clean it
04:37 until all the black slime is completely off the abalone
04:41 and then it's ready to cut.
04:42 - This was not on my list of things
04:44 I thought I'd be doing today.
04:45 We've got the soft, scallop-y middle bit
04:48 and then there's the chewy outer bit.
04:50 I'm gonna, I don't know.
04:51 I don't know what I'm gonna do,
04:52 but we're gonna figure it out together.
04:54 - The texture is very crunchy when it's sashimi,
04:57 but when it's cooked, it's gonna be very tender.
05:00 - A lot of surprising textures going on in here.
05:03 You might think to yourself,
05:04 oh, I know what that feels like,
05:05 but I don't think you do.
05:07 All right, abalone done.
05:08 I'm just gonna put it in a bowl
05:10 and I'll move on to my sauce.
05:11 - Emily was going to make a traditional Western omelet.
05:15 - Kind of thing you could get at your grocery store
05:17 almost by accident.
05:18 - I'm gonna do something else.
05:19 I'm going to make smoked ham hock dashi-maki tamago.
05:23 Dashi-maki tamago is a traditional Japanese
05:26 rolled egg omelet with dashi and an egg together.
05:30 Dashi is traditionally made with the combination of kombu,
05:34 which is kelp, and then a bonito flake.
05:37 Since I don't have a dashi to work with,
05:39 I'm going to work with ham stock.
05:41 At first, I'm going to separate the skin, meat,
05:43 and the bone from this ham hock.
05:44 I actually never worked with a ham hock before.
05:46 Smells great.
05:47 Ham hock is a pork knuckle that is cured and smoked.
05:51 My goal is not to waste any part of this knuckle,
05:53 so I'm going to use some of the skin for garnish,
05:56 some of the meat for the omelet inside,
05:58 and the bones for the stock.
06:00 - So now I'm gonna make my demi-glace.
06:01 - Demi-glace sauce is a French sauce
06:04 that is usually used for omurice,
06:06 but instead of making demi-glace sauce,
06:09 I wanted to show a traditional way
06:11 of making kabayaki sauce.
06:12 - I'm gonna add my kombu and my bay leaves
06:16 and my eel bones.
06:19 - By roasting the bones of the eels
06:21 and then reducing it with soy, sake, mirin,
06:24 and a little bit of honey and balsamic vinegar.
06:26 - The balsamic and honey,
06:27 I think you'd usually stir in close to the end
06:29 if you're gonna use them in a sauce,
06:30 so I'm gonna let them hang out for a bit
06:33 and figure that out later.
06:34 And then I'm just gonna keep reducing this
06:35 until it is closer to the general thickness of a demi-glace,
06:38 which is gonna be reduced by another half to 2/3.
06:41 - So I have broken down the ham hock in four pieces.
06:45 Ham hock skin, and then the meat, bone,
06:47 and then the sinews and tendons.
06:49 Bones and tendons are going to be used for my stock.
06:52 I'm going to add some of my skin as well.
06:54 I'm going to be adding scallions.
06:56 Often people throw away the root,
06:58 but I'm gonna use it for stock.
06:59 So simply I'm just gonna add water,
07:01 just enough to cover the ingredients.
07:03 I'm gonna just cover this pot,
07:05 and then I'm gonna turn the heat high
07:07 for the rest of the ingredients.
07:08 I'm gonna use it all for my omelet.
07:11 - I'm just adding the rest of my honey in
07:13 and the rest of my balsamic.
07:16 Give it a little stir.
07:17 My eel head looks nice and glazed, weirdly enough.
07:20 [laughs]
07:21 All right, my demi-glace looks, I think, reduced,
07:24 so I'm gonna strain it.
07:25 - When it's done, it will be just thick enough
07:28 to sit on top of the omelet rice when it's poured over.
07:32 - Voila.
07:35 Probably what I was supposed to do.
07:37 - So it's been about an hour since the stock started,
07:40 so I'm gonna check how it is.
07:43 Wow, the broth looks so creamy
07:45 because of the collagens from the skin and also the tendon.
07:50 Wow.
07:52 So much flavor, yeah, I love it.
07:54 Humphawk stock is strained.
07:56 I'm gonna just cool this off,
07:58 and then this is gonna be a really great addition
08:01 to my egg omelet.
08:02 - All right, time to make my dashi.
08:04 I have some of this in my freezer, so this I actually know.
08:06 I've got some soaked kombu here,
08:08 and I'm going to put it in my cold water
08:10 and just boil it for like a while.
08:13 - So the dashi is going to be mixed with the egg
08:16 to make extra layer of umami flavor,
08:19 and also it will make it a little bit easier
08:21 to make the egg a little bit runny.
08:23 - All right, so my kombu has fully infused this water
08:27 with its goodness, so now I'm going to cut the heat
08:30 and add my katsuobushi, my bonito flakes.
08:33 One, two, three, four, five, six.
08:38 Is there a clock?
08:39 There is a clock. [laughs]
08:40 All right, I think it's time to strain this,
08:42 so let's do it.
08:44 Boom, maybe, oh, sorry.
08:45 Dashi made, and it smells great.
08:48 Hey, dashi.
08:49 - So I'm going to make special garnishes
08:52 for my egg omelet.
08:53 This is the scallion white part.
08:54 So I'm going to cut them into very thin julienne pieces.
08:58 - So as you might know with omelets,
08:59 they don't really sit around all that well,
09:01 so I thought we'd talk now about the garnish.
09:03 So I have my uni.
09:05 Hey, look, it's my rent in a box.
09:08 The uni that Emily's going to use is from Hokkaido, Japan,
09:11 which is the most precious uni in the world.
09:14 - I have my salmon roe,
09:15 which again will just be popped on top as a garnish,
09:18 but check it out, beautiful.
09:20 And then the last thing I need to do is grate some daikon,
09:23 especially given this very interesting tool
09:25 that he's left for me.
09:26 I feel like this is sort of maybe
09:29 what it's supposed to look like.
09:30 - I'm going to add this into water.
09:32 So water is going to make the scallion crispy
09:35 and also less bitter.
09:37 And after this, I'm going to strain it
09:39 and then let this dry out.
09:41 - So I feel like that's kind of what grated daikon
09:43 could look like, right, guys, friends, world,
09:46 internet, Uncle Roger?
09:48 So my daikon is looking good, I think,
09:50 but it's a little bit wet,
09:51 so I'm just going to strain it
09:52 to see if I can get a little moisture out.
09:54 Those are my garnishes, done.
09:55 - I'm going to prep my ham hock skin.
09:57 Cutting this into julienne shape as well.
10:00 I'm going to add oil to a pan
10:02 and then the skin will be fried
10:04 and it will be super crispy.
10:05 - Like when I stop seeing these bubbles from each,
10:08 I'm going to just take it out.
10:10 It's pretty thick,
10:10 but it really adds nice crunchy textures.
10:14 Pork skin is crispy and ready.
10:17 And also the scallion is dried out and curly.
10:19 My garnish is ready to go.
10:21 - I just got to get ready.
10:22 Got to stay loose, you know?
10:24 Fried rice time.
10:25 - So Emily, it's time to make rice.
10:27 You're going to have an egg omelet on top of it.
10:29 - I'm going to add my oil to the pan.
10:31 So I'm adding my mushrooms first
10:33 and then I'm just going to season these a little bit.
10:35 All right, those are starting to kind of brown a little.
10:37 So I'm going to add my onion.
10:39 Okay, so now I'm adding my garlic.
10:41 I'm going to cut the heat
10:43 and I'm just going to put this back in this bowl
10:44 and then I'm going to do my seafood separately
10:46 'cause I don't want to burn my garlic.
10:48 All right, eel going in.
10:51 All right, so I'm starting with my eel
10:52 and then I'm going to add my abalone after
10:55 'cause it is what we in the business call smaller.
10:58 So I guess I should probably add the abalone.
11:00 Let's just add the abalone.
11:01 I'm going to put my veggies back in here
11:02 and I'm going to grab my rice.
11:03 And bing, bang, boom.
11:04 We're on our way to having this done town.
11:07 - Emily, I heard you love ketchup.
11:09 I got my very favorite Japanese ketchup this time for you.
11:13 I hope you like it
11:14 because you're going to be using a lot of it.
11:16 - So this is Japanese ketchup
11:17 and very much an actual ingredient in Chef Yuji's recipe.
11:22 I did not go rogue on this.
11:24 Well, I actually do think that this looks right.
11:26 I'm feeling good.
11:27 - When the rice is done,
11:28 you're going to put the rice into a very pretty mold
11:32 and then you're going to put the mold into the plate
11:34 so you open up, the rice will be perfectly shaped.
11:37 - Hmm.
11:38 I hope I wasn't supposed to like spray this down
11:39 with anything first.
11:41 I'm sure it'll unmold.
11:42 Okay, my rice is molded and ready for action.
11:46 - Now I'm going to prepare to make omelet.
11:49 The first thing I'm going to do
11:50 is I'm going to cut scallion, ham, meat, and bell pepper.
11:53 I'm going to make it pretty small so that I can roll it
11:56 when I roll omelet.
11:58 I'm not really a big bell pepper fan,
12:00 but I'm going to work with it.
12:02 All the other ingredients are going to make it
12:03 super delicious and then probably it's going to be
12:05 the best bell pepper I will ever have.
12:07 I'm going to just melt the butter.
12:09 I'm going to just cook the vegetables
12:11 until they're just soft enough to eat.
12:13 The ham is already cooked,
12:15 so I'm going to just add it at the very end
12:17 to just warm it up.
12:19 I'm putting these ingredients into a paper towel
12:22 so that the excess butter will be absorbed.
12:24 This part of my filling for egg omelet is finished.
12:27 I'm going to move on to the next step.
12:29 - Time to make my omelet.
12:30 This is the hard part.
12:32 Emily, this is where it gets a little bit challenging,
12:35 but you can do it.
12:36 Not difficult techniques,
12:37 but it is more time-sensitive technique.
12:41 - This alone was a new and exciting technique
12:44 that I'm going to try.
12:45 I am coating the pan with a little bit of oil
12:48 using an oil-soaked paper towel,
12:51 which Chef Yuji recommended.
12:53 All right, so oil in the pan.
12:54 I'm going to start cracking some eggs.
12:57 Just a sploosh of dashi, not a lot.
13:00 Give it a mix.
13:01 I'm looking for a uniform consistency on these eggs,
13:03 a medium.
13:04 And I am going to go a little lower
13:06 than they would tell you to
13:07 because it's going to give me more time
13:08 to not freak out between you and me.
13:11 - The type of egg omelet I'm making right now
13:14 is called dashimaki tamago.
13:16 Dashimaki tamago means traditional dashi egg roll omelet.
13:21 I have a special pan designed to make dashimaki tamago.
13:25 So this is designed so that the thickness
13:28 of the roll omelet will be even all the way.
13:30 These are my chopsticks.
13:31 Came from my apartment,
13:32 and I just noticed that a lot of smiley frogs.
13:36 Yeah, I didn't even realize there were frogs on my chopsticks.
13:39 They're cute.
13:40 Very encouraging, yeah.
13:42 I have a very strong memory
13:44 with this specific type of egg omelet
13:47 because my mom always put this in a bento box every morning,
13:52 and my wife does it every morning now for my son.
13:55 Three egg.
13:56 So this amount, I think, is perfect
13:58 for the size of the pan that I have here.
14:00 And I'm going to add ham stock.
14:03 This is gonna make the mixture a little bit more loose.
14:05 Some people add heavy cream into it,
14:07 but I think this kind of does similar things.
14:09 Adding a combination of ham, scallion, and bell pepper.
14:14 Okay, so the mixture is ready.
14:17 This is the oil.
14:18 You just wanna spread it evenly.
14:21 If I do squeeze bottle, it would not be as evenly.
14:26 I'm gonna just roll it.
14:26 And the first one would be just simple.
14:30 Roll.
14:32 Okay, so this is the first round,
14:33 and I'm gonna push it up.
14:34 Going to pour more,
14:36 and I'm gonna add this cheese this time.
14:40 Number two is done.
14:41 I'm gonna do finale.
14:42 More cheese.
14:44 I'm very focused right now.
14:47 We're good, we're good, we're good, we're good.
14:49 Nobody panic, we're okay.
14:50 And then slowly you're gonna start seeing egg is getting set
14:53 and then the outside will be a little bit more crunchy.
14:57 And then that's when you start rolling.
14:59 Okay, my thought is I'm gonna,
15:00 once I know I can start folding it,
15:02 I'll put the uni down the middle,
15:03 do the other fold, get it on there as fast as possible.
15:06 - Before you roll it completely,
15:08 you're gonna add uni in the middle.
15:10 The trick here is you're gonna have to move quickly
15:13 because it's very time sensitive to make the egg right.
15:17 - Gotta go fast, gotta go fast.
15:20 That's a good amount of uni.
15:20 Uni's very expensive.
15:22 Don't break, don't break, don't break.
15:23 Okay, okay, all right.
15:24 It's not the best, but it's not the worst.
15:27 This is actually the perfect height.
15:29 So I'm rolling this up in a sushi rolling mat
15:32 so that the egg will be in a perfect shape.
15:34 So I'm going to put this in a fridge for about a half hour
15:37 so that it's gonna be chill, which will make it easier to cut.
15:40 I just took it out of the fridge so it's nicely chill.
15:45 Looks good actually, yep.
15:46 Nice thickness all around.
15:47 I see some cheese coming out.
15:49 So I'm gonna cut this in six pieces.
15:51 Oh, nice, that's kind of cute.
15:53 Now I'm gonna add a cheese.
15:55 Next, I'm gonna add a little fire.
15:57 [fire crackling]
15:58 So it's gonna melt it and it's gonna make a nice char
16:01 and I think it's gonna add a really extra flavor.
16:03 And then I'm gonna just add a scallions,
16:05 crispy ham hock skin.
16:07 Then I'm gonna finish with a black pepper.
16:09 Wow, that's awesome.
16:11 All right, and gently, gently, gently.
16:16 Okay, I don't know if it's perfect, but it is something.
16:20 Ta-da!
16:21 [laughing]
16:23 And this is my take on Chef Yuji's omurice.
16:25 This is my take on Emily's omelet.
16:28 It looks great.
16:29 I actually love how it's looking.
16:30 Yeah, it's very unique.
16:32 - Hey, how's it going? - Hey, nice to see you.
16:35 How's it going? - Nice to see you.
16:36 Yeah, very excited to see what you got.
16:37 - I'm very excited.
16:38 So I have an omelet ready to go here,
16:41 so we should probably do that.
16:42 - Yeah.
16:43 Ooh, nice!
16:45 Oh, yay!
16:49 Looks great.
16:53 - Listen, I'm not gonna stand here and tell you
16:54 it's perfect, but it's not the worst.
16:56 So I have some toppings that I'll put on real quick.
16:58 - Wow, that looks great.
17:00 - Carefully, carefully.
17:01 - Nice, it stays on top.
17:03 - Yay!
17:04 - Good job!
17:05 - Thank you.
17:06 [laughing]
17:08 - This is not easy at all, but this looks great.
17:11 Yeah, this is exactly what I imagined.
17:13 - Do you wanna dig in?
17:13 - Yes, I will do it.
17:14 - Okay.
17:15 - Mm, that is so good.
17:20 - You get the flavor of the ocean,
17:22 but then it's also tangy and sweet and salty.
17:26 - The texture of the eel is so firm,
17:28 so everything else is so soft, too.
17:30 So that's the kind of contrast that I wanted to create.
17:34 And then I think you did very good.
17:35 - Thank you so much!
17:37 This looks so different from what I was gonna make.
17:39 - Dashi makitamago is a rolled egg omelet with dashi,
17:43 but I didn't have bonito or kombu,
17:45 so I made a dashi stock with ham hock skin,
17:50 sinews, tendon, and bone.
17:52 Mm.
17:55 - Mm, you get that smokiness of the ham hock in it,
17:58 in a way that I feel like you wouldn't just get
17:59 in a Western omelet.
18:00 I'm really impressed with how you reinvented
18:02 those six pretty simple ingredients.
18:04 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:05 When I thought about the dish that I gave you,
18:09 I thought it was gonna be really difficult,
18:13 and I honestly thought that you wouldn't be able to make it,
18:16 but this is so good,
18:19 and it's beautifully made,
18:20 and the flavor is so good, too.
18:22 I'm very happy this came out, yeah.
18:24 - I'm honored.
18:25 Well, maybe next time you can make me the omurice,
18:27 and I can make this.
18:28 - No, no, no, I'm not gonna take that kind of pressure.
18:30 (laughing)
18:31 It's just so hard to make.
18:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]