Marinated Soft-Boiled Egg (Japanese Style)

Japanese style marinated soft-boiled egg is usually seen serving with ramen (Japanese noodles in soup). However, I think this delicacy is good enough to be served on its own, as well as with cold noodle, rice dishes, or ramen.

The marinate used to make this recipe shown below is very simple to make, although I do have a more complicated version of this marinate which I just can’t bring myself to do (do excuse for my laziness…).

For this recipe, I would only use imported eggs from Japan for three reasons: (i) Taste better; (ii) err…in case of getting any foodborne illnesses (but than again I eat tiramisu which has raw egg in it…I’m such a hypocrite); (iii) I simply don’t have enough faith from farms in China and I can’t be sure what eggs are locally sourced from HK or PRC, hence it’s easier just buy Japanese imported ones.

Jap Eggs Mirin


Ingredients:

3 Japanese eggs
75ml Soy sauce (I use the premium type)
75ml Mirin (味淋 – in Chinese)
225ml Water

Directions:

• Place soy sauce, mirin, water in to a pot, use medium heat and bring the marinade to boil. Set aside to cool.


• Heat up a pot of water (enough to cover the whole egg), once boiling, put in a bowl of water (room temperature), place in the eggs and leave it to cook for 5 minutes.


• Get the eggs out and place in cold water immediately.


• Once the eggs have cooled, peel off it shell and wipe away any excess water than place in marinate which has been cooled and place in refrigerator.


• Leave it to marinate for 1-2 days before serving.

Variations / Tips:

• When the size of eggs or quantity varies, the marinate can be adjusted in this ratio - soy sauce: mirin: water – 1 :1 : 3.


• If you are using eggs that are stored in the fridge, take it out and rest in room temperature for about 5-10 minutes before proceeding, otherwise when you place it into the pot of boiling water, it will most likely crack from the pressure.


• For extra large egg, cooking time is added on by one minute.
  
• Other ingredients such as wine (if you add in wine then reduce the amount of water) / tea leave / star anise can be added into marinate.


• Marinate can be reused by boiling it again then place in a glass jar and place in the fridge or keeping. You can add in soy sauce 25ml, mirin 25ml, water 75ml after a reusing marinate for a couple of times.


• When boiling the “old” marinate, use sieve to take out the froth before placing into jar to cool.