Confessions 23: Stuff in eggs, on rice

3:30 PM on 11.16.2010   |   Dale North

We usually find ourselves confessing to idols, actors or even characters, but this time I'm opening my heart to food. If anything, this will serve as an exploration of my feelings toward this particular type of dish, which is uniquely Japanese. A way to a man's heart is his stomach, as they always say. Those pretty Japanese girls make me happy, but these kinds of dishes always leave me truly satisfied.

Egg-topped donburi, I love you and I don't know why.

Here's the thing: I don't even really like eggs. If they're hard-boiled, get them away from me. Deviled eggs are disgusting. If I smell them I'll dry heave. Over-easy even kinda grosses me out. I won't eat them plain, and usually pass on them at breakfast. Of course, I'll get down with them in a dish. A quiche is nice. Souffle is cool. But normally I'd rather eat something else. Something without baby chicken embryo on it or on it.

But then I had katsudon for the first time when I was young. It changed my life. And really, this could just as easily have been an ode to that fantastic dish (it's my favorite dish of them all), but now I understand something that I didn't before: It's all about the egg and the rice. Japan does amazing things with fried pork cutlets, and that's a lot of what makes katsudon nice, but now that I've tried just about everything I can with the half-cooked eggs sitting on a piping hot bowl of rice, I'm convinced that there's something special here.

Who stumbled upon this culinary wonder? I'm not out to research or understand the history of donburi (bowls of goodness on rice, roughly translated), but I want to thank the guy that decided to just throw an egg on top of something. I imagine it as a happy accident. Whatever happened, I'm grateful. He may have died from high cholesterol, and I may too, but at least I'll die happy.

Now, not all donburi have egg in or on it, but I believe that all could benefit from the addition of an egg. Guydon is just beef on rice, with a sauce that sometimes contains onions. It's great, but when you crack an egg on top, the dish reaches a completely different level. Many dishes, like katsudon (pork cutlet) oyakodon (chicken) also use a simple seasoning of soy sauce, dashi and mirin, maybe with some sugar. It's that mixture with egg that kills. Its power is overwhelming. The scent fills my soul with calm. The taste brings me to another world. And it has to be sitting on a heaping pile of steaming rice. It's a magical mixture.

I honestly believe that the protein doesn't even matter that much. Recently I tried the soy/dashi/mirin/sugar mixture with egg and some roasted chicken. It was heavenly. I've had a fancy crabmeat version before. The sweetness of the crab with the sweetness of the egg and sauce was beautiful. But even a dish that I call "desperation-don" proves that the egg/rice/sauce mixture is what does the trick. The protein is canned tuna. That shouldn't work, but it works like a charm.

I recently tried pork and kimchi in the mixture. It was so incredibly good that I ate it again at the same restaurant that same week. I'd eat it now if it wasn't all the way in Tokyo.

I'm still out to explore the world of egg-topped donburi. I'll keep on adding things in this mixture to prove my theory. Broiled fish? Done. Pot roast? Well...we'll see. I want to try standard supermarket fish sticks as a contrast, but I'm sure it will work. It all plays. 

Come to think of it, I haven't had lunch yet.