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Japan may be well known for its traditional cuisine, but fusion cuisine here is just as exciting, and one particular fusion food that’s captured our hearts is the humble “Kissaten Tamago Sando," or in English: “Coffee Shop Egg Sandwich“.
Kissaten are retro coffee shops that serve up not just tea and coffee but desserts and light meals as well. The kissaten egg sandwich is a coffee shop mainstay that conjures up an air of nostalgia for the Showa era (1926–1989), the heyday for kissaten, and what makes them unique is the fact that they contain thick, fluffy omelettes.
In Japan, omelettes are a thing unto themselves, cooked in rectangular frypans and gradually rolled over in layers to create thickness while retaining a light, moist and fluffy texture. It takes a bit of skill to learn how to make them properly, with chopsticks involved in the rolling, and while they taste great, they require quite a bit of time and patience to make.
So what do you do when you’ve got a craving for a thick-omelette Coffee Shop Egg Sandwich but are too lazy to make one? If you’re like us, you turn to the Fluffy Japanese Omelette Maker, which we’ll be trying out today.
This gadget promises to take all the hard work out of omelette making, and does away with the need for a pan as it’s designed to be used in the microwave.
Keen to test its effectiveness, we gathered together the following ingredients: eggs, white bread, mayonnaise, milk and salt.
The first step is to crack the eggs into the container and add two teaspoons of milk, five grams of mayonnaise and a small pinch of salt. Then you pop the yellow plate into the container, cover it with the lid and…push the plate handle up and down.
A bit of force is required to raise and lower the plate with one hand, and the lid will come off if you don’t hold it down with the other hand, so it takes a little bit of getting used to. According to the instructions, the ingredients come together after a minute of plate-pumping, and then it’s time to cook it all in the microwave.
We removed the yellow pumping plate and popped the lidded container into the microwave, cooking the mixture for one minute on 500 watts. The next step is to take the lid off, stir the mixture about 10 times, and then it’s back into the microwave for 30-40 seconds at 500 watts.
Microwaves vary, however, and after 40 seconds, our egg was still runny so we heated it again until it was solid.
Taking it out of the container, we were surprised to find that it did actually look like a thick omelette.
We placed it in between two slices of bread and cut the sandwich in half diagonally to get that coffeehouse egg sandwich look. It had the distinct flavour we were hoping for, but unfortunately our creation left a lot to be desired in terms of looks, so we decided to have another go at making our dream sandwich.
This time we were aiming for a uniform thickness and a result that looked more like the egg sandwich on the packaging. We had a hunch our mistake lay in the cooking, so we decided to raise the temperature of the microwave to get a more even surface on the omelette.
The higher temperature worked a treat, because when we removed the omelette, it was much more uniform, both in colour and shape.
And when we used the omelette to make our egg sandwich, it looked much more like the ones served up at a kissaten.
And what about the taste? It was, in a word, delicious! It had a wonderful creaminess to it and a light, airy texture that satisfied all our egg sandwich cravings.
Now that 2020 has us spending a lot more time at home than usual, we’re determined to keep pumping this Fluffy Japanese Omelette Maker until we perfect the art of kissaten egg sandwich making.
Priced at 660 yen plus tax, it’s a small investment that saves a lot of time and effort, and it now has a place at home in our kitchen.
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
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-- Starbucks’ retro Japanese kissaten menu debuts deliciously mature coffee gelatin cake【Taste test】
- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2020/08/19/make-fluffy-japanese-omelettes-in-the-microwave-with-this-handy-kitchen-gadget/
11 Comments
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JeffLee
I like omelettes but not if the ingredients are Kewpie mayonnaise and processed white bread (!)
Serve it on lightly toasted whole-grain brown bread, and put in lots of cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, bell peppers, a touch of onions, etc. and I'll be interested.
that person
Japan. King of the useless and useful kitchens tools.
Luddite
More junk. Making an omelette is not ‘hard work’. First pancake mix, now this. Do people really not have the skills to make these basic dishes?
kohakuebisu
Couldn't you make the same thing in a tupperware with a partially open lid? All the attachment thing does is beat the eggs as a fork would do.
I quite like kissatens, but not for the food. I'd rather have a cola float in a kissaten than a frappucino at Starbucks.
John Toomey
The problem arises that using plastic, such as tupperware, silicone, Saranwrap cling film or those plastic "microwaveable" dome covers that abound in Japan has been linked with the production of amyloids in the brain which causes Alzheimer's disease. It's no wonder that Japan is seeing a rise in dementia patients. Ironically it was a Japanese-American doctor who discovered and published this. But when I lived in Japan in the late 60s--early 70s Japanese friends expressed contempt and utter hatred (kirai) for nisei, 2nd generation Japanese. Who could hate their own descendants!? Hopefully this ignorance will pass soon, but as of this date, my Japanese friends still use plastic in the microwave.
Pukey2
As a vegan, I don't eat eggs, but I used to make omelettes. It's not difficult. Are people really this lazy?
Mickelicious
Some people love their tat. Levels of clutter aren't so much breathtaking as suffocating.
cleo
The things cooked in rectangular pans and rolled over on themselves are not omelettes, they are tamagoyaki and they do not contain mayo or milk. And they do not belong in a sandwich.
BertieWooster
When mum came to Japan, one of the things that genuinely surprised her was to see packs of breadcrumbs. "Can't they make their own?"
You surely don't need a plastic box and paddle to make tamagoyaki? I mean, come on! Even us gaijin can do that!
cleo
They are handy, mind.
My homebaked wholewheat bread is too good to use for breadcrumbs (there's never any left, anyway), and if I'm going to fork out for a pack of the white sliced stuff just to make breadcrumbs, I may as well just buy the breadcrumbs in the first place.