018 - Fish and Egg in a Bowl (a.k.a the DON)

Good morning everyone!

I sincerely hope the hangover from last night got through already. No? SUCK IT THEN! X))))

Anyway, I’m feeling like making a simple don before you go out for the day. You know, Don, that Japanese lunch in a bowl. It’s mostly fast and convenient. Tasted good too!

I loved the fact than you can prep 2/3 of the ingredient in this recipe beforehand. And by beforehand, I mean the night BEFORE! How amazing is that? Having a great lunch bowl ALREADY done even before you woke up the day after! (okay, I’m waaaaay too excited)

The Don will consist of 2 section: Rice and Toppings. No fuss in between. That’s, unless you want to add something else.

You will need:

As many rice as you want to fit inside the bowl. That’ll be around 1 cup or so on a small-medium size bowl.

For the fish floss:

150 grams of white fish, preferably Cod or Halibut (that’s ‘ikan sebelah’ for you Indonesians)

1 tbsp of Sea Salt for poaching

2 cups of water for poaching (feel free to adjust according to the size of your saucepan)

1 tbsp of Sake

1 tbsp of Mirin

1 tbsp of Sugar

2-3 drops of Red food coloring dissolved in a teaspoon of water (optional, but it made the dish looked pretty!)

To those reluctant to use alcohol in this recipe, you can cook without it just fine. The alcohol role in this recipe is to remove the fishiness.

For the scrambled eggs:

2 whole eggs

A pinch of salt

Ready? Here We Go

How to make Fish Floss

Step 1 – Clean your fish thoroughly, remove every bones if you haven’t ask your fishmonger to do so, wipe the surface with paper towel to remove excess moisture. Cut it down to small pieces to fit the saucepan.

Step 2 – Pour your water into the sauce pan, and dunk the sea salt in it. Let it boil.

Salt

Step 3 – Once boiling, throw your fish in and let cook for around 2 minutes on high heat, before lowering the heat down to low. Remove any foam on the surface while you cook. Once the fish can be flaked easily, time to remove it!

Foam starting to appear

Remove the foam!

Step 4 – Prepare a strainer to drain your fish. Once all visible moisture has gone down, lay the fish onto the paper towel to be squeezed out of every single bit of moisture left. It’s okay if you want to imagine your ex gf/bf while you’re squeezing, I’m not here to judge. HAHAHA LOL.

Strain

Squeeze

Ready for flaking

Step 5 – After squeezing, time for flaking! Now it’s time to get down and dirty. First thing first, WASH YOUR HANDS. No no, I don’t care if you said you washed it after you pee. If it came after touching the crotch, it won’t touch your food. Once your hands are clean, flake your fish (be careful, it’s still hot!), tear down every single bit you can lay your hands on. This process will help later on!

Step 6 – Prep your nonstick pan on low heat, then dunk your flaked fish in. I’m using chopsticks for 2 reasons: it won’t hurt my Teflon that much, plus, it looked bad ass. Stir your fish constantly with high speed. Then, pour your sake, mirin and sugar in. Stir vigorously until all moisture has left the fish. Word of advice: the pan might get too hot and brown the fish. If this happens, remove the pan from the heat and continue stirring before returning it back to the heat.

Sake

Mirin

Sugar

Stir more

Step 7 – Pour your food coloring in, stir even more vigorously to ensure even coloring on the fish. At this stage, you can use fork to break any stubborn lumps. After a minute or two, your fish floss is done!!

How to make the scrambled eggs

Step 1 – Break your eggs into the bowl, stir it with whatever tools you have lying around.

Step 2 – Prep your pan, pour a dash of oil. Just before dunking your eggs into the hot pan, give a dash of salt to taste.

Step 3 – Stir vigorously with chopsticks (or fork, FINE), to create a small and consistently sized eggs.

Step 4 – You’re finish once all liquids are gone!

Serve.

Man. MAN. That looked friggin’ cool. At some point, I thought I recreated a pokeball on a different color (Haha!)

Anyway, the fish floss could keep in the fridge inside a sterile jar for around 2-3 days. It’s microwavable, so it’s a nice thing to have for a quick bite.

Give this a go, and let me know how it turns out.

Peace

xx