Tamago-don Recipe: How to Make Japanese Egg Donburi

Tamago-don is a donburi (Japanese rice bowl) that features eggs cooked in dashi on top of cooked rice. Tamago-don, which means “egg bowl,” is a vegetarian variation of oyakodon (short for oyako donburi), one of the most popular donburi in Japan. Oyakodon translates to "parent and child bowl." It's made with chopped chicken thighs and is topped with a steamed egg and a garnish of sliced scallions.

Dashi refers to a group of Japanese cooking stocks. The most common, awase dashi, is made by steeping thick sheets of dried kelp (kombu) with katsuobushi—fermented, dried shavings of either skipjack tuna or bonito—in either cold or hot water. Dashi is much lighter than other soup stocks, like chicken broth or bone broth, which rely on long cooking times to extract as much flavor as possible from the stock’s contents. Instant dashi powder is available at Asian grocery stores, or you can simmer kombu and bonito flakes together in water. Substitute the bonito for dried shiitake mushrooms to make vegetarian dashi.