Inspired partly by the film Jiro Dreams of Sushi and our fabulous Japanese repast at Cleveland's Ginko (recounted here), partly by an excess of rapidly aging eggs left over from our Passover festivities, and finally by a timely post by my favorite Japanese food blogger, Hiroyuki, on several eggy subjects, including Ougon Chahan (Golden Fried Rice)/黄金炒飯（チャーハン）- we recently had fun playing with food in a few variations on these themes.
First, the "Golden Fried Rice." This is a little misnamed (in English, anyway) because it isn't fried rice at all in the way we usually think of it - pre-cooked rice that is fried with solids, then accented with liquid. Here, the precooked rice is soaked in egg before it is pan-cooked, yielding a completely different type of dish.
We began with a package of smoked Pacific salmon and our fabulous Breychak Farm bacon.
Render the bacon fat, then scoop out the bacon bits and saute some chopped veggies in the fat:
In the meantime, some previously cooked rice soaks up Miller Farm eggs:
First the rice is added to the pan and stirred until the eggs just begin to set, then the salmon, then the bacon bits are added back to the pan, together with a bit of soy sauce and sesame oil:
Top with chopped scallions and serve with your choice of hot sauce (we used Sriracha):
Our second round of play inverted this recipe into the more familiar Omurice, or rice omelet, depicted in the film Tampopo. In an eggy double-dip, we used the leftover Ougon Chahan as the filling:
After the omelet is folded over in the pan, it is slid onto the plate such that the seam is on the bottom. After slicing a line through the top of the eggs, a fine line of ketchup is applied in a zig-zag.
Oops - ketchup squeeze bottle fail. But you get the idea. And yes, it was delicious!
And speaking of the Passover leftovers - the very last one was a quart of chicken soup. Here, it is re-purposed Tampopo-style with fresh vegetables, together with pork dumplings I made for a dinner club meeting in February and packaged Chinese noodles from the freezer:
Fun playing with Asian-style food - a perfect warm up for the Cleveland Asian Festival which will occur this weekend in Cleveland's Asiatown! More on that will follow shortly.
