Japanese Style Scrambled Eggs (Tamago Toji)

A Happy New Year!! Have  a lot of happy days ahead in the year.

I call this ‘Japanese Style Scrambled Eggs’ because it looks like scrambled eggs, although the eggs are cooked with some vegetables in a dashi-based, lightly flavoured broth. It is a great side dish or even a main dish if you want a light meal.

New year’s day is much more important than Christmas for Japanese and they celebrate it with a set of special dishes that is called ‘osechi ryōri’ (お節料理). I have to post it one day but today’s recipe is a simple egg dish.

Snow peas, green in the bright yellow of egg, stimulates the appetite. In about 10 minutes, you can make such an attractive tasty dish. Unlike the Western style scrambled eggs, it does not use butter or oil. It’s a healthy scrambled eggs.

Scrambled Eggs or Egg Drop Soup?

If you search Google Images for ‘tamago toji recipe’ or ‘tamagotoji recipe’, you will notice that the majority of the images are egg drop soups. But if you type tamagotoji in Japanese, i.e. ‘卵とじ’, you will find they are scrambled eggs mixed with vegetables and sometimes meat, just like today’s recipe.

By Japanese definition, tamago toji is NOT an egg drop soup but a Japanese style scrambled eggs.

I have no idea how ‘tamago toji’ was interpreted as ‘egg drop soup’ in the Western world. Perhaps because Japanese noddle soup covered with scrambled eggs is called ‘tamago toji soba’ or ‘tamago toji udon’ in Japan.

However, unlike Chinese egg drop soup, egg is not dropped into the soup to make these versions. Scrambled eggs are simply placed on top of the noddle soup in a bowl. The word ‘toji’ (とじ) means seal and ‘tamago toji’ literally means sealing with egg, just like the way the noddle soup is covered with scrambled egg.

Egg drop soup in Japan is called ‘Kakitama-jiru’ (かきたま汁). I posted Japanese Style Egg Drop Soup (Kakitama-jiru) if you are interested in what it looks like.

Ingredients

Tamago Toji is made by cooking vegetables with or without meat in flavoured dashi broth, then adding beaten eggs. It usually consists of only a couple of ingredients other than eggs.

You can use any vegetables as long as they go well with the soy sauce flavour and egg. Typical vegetables used for tamago toji include snow peas, spinach, green beans, burdock and onions. Interestingly, I don’t see carrot included in tamago toji very often.

The meat can be chicken, pork or beef but beef is the least common. White meat fish and fish cakes can also be used.

Tofu and tofu products such as yuba (dried tofu skin) and aburaage (thin fried tofu) are also very popular ingredients.

Dashi Broth for Japanese Style Scrambled Egg

The dashi broth is a typical mixture of dashi stock, soy sauce, mirin and sake. For 200ml/7.1oz of dashi stock, you need 2½ tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon each of mirin and sake are added.

You might find that the flavour of the broth is quite bland initially but while cooking the vegetables the broth is condensed, and the flavour becomes just right.

Cooking Eggs

Although I call it ‘scrambled’, you don’t scramble the eggs the way you make the Western style scrambled eggs. In fact, you hardly scramble the eggs at all.

When the vegetables and meat are cooked, and while there is still a sufficient amount of broth in the pan, add the beaten eggs in a swirling motion, then mix only a little bit to spread the eggs evenly. Place a lid on and cook.

Today, I made Japanese Style Scrambled Eggs (Tamago Toji) with snow peas and yuba (dried tofu skin). But you can make Tamago Toji with different combinations of vegetables and with or without meat. It is so versatile.

Yumiko

PS: I added a new section ‘MEAL IDEAS’ below the recipe card. It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and the new recipe in this post that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you!

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Japanese Style Scrambled Eggs (Tamago Toji)

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Total Time

10 mins

 

Eggs are scrambled with snow peas and yuba (dried tofu skin) in dashi broth flavoured with soy sauce, mirin and sake. It is very quick to make, and the flavour is quite light. Perfect as a side dish or a light main dish.

Unlike the Western style scrambled eggs, it does not use butter or oil. It's a healthy scrambled eggs.

Recipe Type: Mains, Sides

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: scrambled eggs, tamago toji, tamagotoji

Serves: 2 as side, 1 as main

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients

• 200g/7.1oz snow peas (note 1)
• 25g/0.9oz yuba (dried tofu skin) sheet rehydrated (note 2)
• 2 eggs beaten

Sauce

• 200ml/6.8oz dashi stock
• 2½ tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp sake

Instructions

1. Remove ends of snow peas. If snow peas are large, cut in half diagonally.
2. Cut yuba sheet into 5cm/2” square pieces.
3. Add the Sauce ingredients in a shallow saucepan or a frying pan and bring it to a boil over medium high heat.

4. Add snow peas and yuba pieces to the pan and cook for about 1 minute until the snow peas are nearly cooked.

5. Add the eggs to the pan in a swirling motion to try to cover the entire surface. Use chopsticks or a fork and mix the eggs to spread them evenly.

6. Place a lid on, reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 45 seconds until the surface of the egg is almost cooked. (note 3)

7. Remove the pan from the heat and transfer the Scrambled Eggs to a serving bowl.

8. Serve while hot.

Recipe Notes

1. Instead of snow peas, you can use other green vegetables such as chopped spinach, green beans, burdock, etc.

2. Please refer to my post Dried Tofu Skin Soup Two Ways for more details about yuba. Instead of yuba, you could use tofu or aburaage.

3. There should still be sauce left in the port and you should be able to see it around the egg. See the photos in the post.

4. The ingredients to be cooked with the eggs can be any vegetables, tofu products   with/without meat as long as they go well with eggs and the soy sauce flavour.

5. Nutrition per serving as a side. It assumes all the broth will be consumed but in reality some of it will not be consumed.

serving: 296g calories: 234kcal fat: 9.9g (15%) saturated fat: 3g (13%) trans fat: 0g polyunsaturated fat: 3.2g monounsaturated fat: 3.1g cholesterol: 187mg (62%) sodium: 1329mg (55%) potassium: 606mg (17%) carbohydrates: 14g (4%) dietary fibre: 2.8g (11%) sugar: 7.5g protein: 19.3g vitamin a: 27% vitamin c: 100% calcium: 8.2 % iron: 23 %