THOUGHTS ON A JAPANESE BREAKFAST

This story was created by our partners at the Heavy Table, a weekly culinary newsletter dedicated to covering the best food and drink of the Upper Midwest. Back them on Patreon to receive four distinct email newsletters focused on dining, the restaurant business, spirits, and home cooking: http://www.patreon.com/heavytable

Experimentation is one of the most important things we can do as conscious people who have to eat constantly to stay alive. That can and should mean trying a new recipe every once in a while - it's a way to stretch our muscles not just as home cooks, but as eaters, too.

Sometimes a new recipe doesn't quite fit into the rotation or is duplicative of something else in the mix; but sometimes it changes the way we eat for the rest of our lives. Years ago, a friend introduced me and Becca to okonomiyaki, and we've been eating it ever since, a change in our diet that brings with it a lot of fresh, light vegetables and an intoxicating but surprisingly light dressing of mayo, okonomi sauce, and furikake.

But experimentation can go beyond the recipe level and cross over into completely reinventing a meal. This past week, I've been doing it by eating an interpretation of a Japanese breakfast. It's a long way from an American savory breakfast of bacon and/or sausage and toast or biscuits and cheese. And it's a very, very long way from a sweet breakfast of waffles or pancakes. It has a hell of a lot of umami and pickled brightness, and it's really a radically different way to start one's day.

MISO SOUP

If you've never made miso soup, I recommend trying it (recipe follows). It's absurdly easy, almost insultingly easy, and the result is delicious and close to if not identical to what you'll get at most Japanese restaurants. I bulked my soup out a bit with tofu (pretty standard) and sautéed shiitake mushrooms (a little less typical but not exactly heresy.) I made a lot, so I could just re-heat it throughout the week.

MISO SOUP
Makes about six small servings' worth

1 Tbsp butter
4 oz. shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed, and sliced thinly
Salt and pepper to taste
8 cups water
2 Tbsp white miso paste
2 Tbsp dried wakame
6 pinches salt
8 oz. of firm tofu

Melt butter in a small pan on medium heat. Add your mushrooms and cook until they're tender and starting to brown, about 5-7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat water to boil, add wakame. When water boils, add miso and salt and stir to dissolve. Boil 2 minutes, stir in tofu and mushrooms, heat for another minute, and then serve. Refrigerates quite well.

TAMAGOYAKI (JAPANESE OMELET)

For the tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet) I initially have the idea that I'll do what it takes a guy like six months to learn in Jiro Dreams of Sushi: compose the omelet layer by layer in a little rectangular pan, building up a perfectly even roll of cooked eggs that I can freeze and reheat each morning.

Instead what I do is this: make a bunch of crappy looking egg garbage in a little rectangular pan, swearing constantly as I progressively wreck it more and more with every move I make.

It takes all my willpower to not throw all of it, pan included, into the trash. Instead, I take a bite. Oh. The horrible-looking pile of eggs is actually pretty delicious.

I put the liquid omelet into the fridge, figuring I can just cook it up stovetop in about five minutes for breakfast, paying no heed to making it look in any way respectable. And sure enough, the liquid omelet (cooked in a saute pan) is great the next day.

TAMAGOYAKI, KINDA
Makes three breakfasts' worth

6 large eggs
6 Tbsp dashi (Japanese soup stock) (I used Awase miso and boiling water to make my stock)
4 tsp sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp mirin
4 pinches kosher salt

Whisk eggs in bowl, don't overmix. In another bowl, combine dashi, sugar, soy sauce, mirin, salt. Pour seasonings into eggs and mix to combine.

Heat a saute pan over medium heat. Apply a thin layer of oil to the pan and let it heat up.

Pour about a third of your egg mixture into the pan, tilting the pan so it coats the entire cooking surface. (You can store the other two thirds in a sealed container in the fridge.)

Once the mixture is almost entirely cooked, use a spatula to fold it up, let it cook for a bit longer (another minute or so) and remove it to a plate. If it looks like crap, that's fine! It'll taste great!

ASIAN PICKLES

As for pickles, I buy two varieties at the Asian market. One is a salty Korean seaweed pickle that I take one bite of and throw away. I'm sure there's a way you're supposed to use it, I don't care, it's green death and I hate it.

The other is a mix of carrots and cabbage or something, I don't know, it's pretty damned chewy, but actually not bad. We can work with this. Good.

Sprinkling a little bit of sesame seeds onto the pickles make them taste a little more ... complete? Full? I don't know, but it's an improvement, for sure.

RICE

I made some rice, too. There are plenty of essays online about why a rice cooker is a crucial piece of kitchen equipment, and let me just say: I agree with them. Rice is too tedious and too fussy to be left to chance every time it's time to make it.

CONCLUSION

Clean, refreshing, balanced, diverting and - after the initial soup and omelet stuff is made - really easy, I highly endorse the Japanese breakfast concept as a change of pace at the very least. It's no plate heaping with waffles and maple syrup and pork sausage... and that's the beauty of it.