Japanese Omu-rice with Mediterranean Flavors (lacto-ovo-vegetarian)
Omu-raisu (Omelette-Rice) is a typical Japanese dish that is loved by everyone. Omu-raisu is basically an omelette that contains a type of fried-rice... get for yesterday's leftovers! The most popular Omu-Raisu is an omelette that wraps a chicken friend rice.... with Ketchup! It's delicious! But perhaps not as healthy as we would like it to be.
The basics of Omu-raisu is extremely versatile - you can change the filling to anything. Some like to add stir-fried noodles in this and make "omu-soba" too.
In this blog, I wanted to share a simple recipe where you can use Mediterranean flavors with lemon, olive oil and paisley to make a summery "fresh" and healthy omu-rice. Perfect for this lingering summer heat!
The key ingredient is the Halloumi cheese (our chicken alternative). This is very substantial and both vegetarians and non-vegetarian will love it. This cheese will not melt like typical cheeses and you can "grill" it. In this recipe we cut them into bite-seize chunks, grill them and mix into the rice instead of frying the rice in order to reduce the amount of oil used per serving.
Another tool that we love is this ceramic frying pan. It is SUPER light. Even kids can hold it with one hand and cook!
It is a non-stick pan coated with ceramic and you can also use on induction cookers. If you want to reduce the amount of oil in your cooking, this is a highly recommended tool to have in your kitchen. Remember not to use on high flame!
One more tool that we like is this chopper.
It is a handheld manual food processor and a great tool to make minced onions. It also comes with a salad spinner to spin leafy greens.
Japanese Omu-rice with Mediterranean Flavors
(Will make 4 Omu-rices)
Ingredients
For Mediterranean flavored rice
300g, Organic Brown Rice (Raw)
600ml, Filtered Water
200g, Halloumi Cheese,
1/2 piece, Onion, minced
4 cloves, garlic, chopped
2 pieces, Roasted Red Pepper
1 bunch, English Parsley, chopped
(set aside some for the tomato salad and to decorate)
Salt and pepper to taste
For the tomato salad and dressing
1/2 Organic Lemon, for the lemon juice and zest
3 Tbsp., Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp., Natural Salt
A pinch of black pepper to taste
2 pc, Tomatoes diced
For the omlet
12 Eggs, 3 eggs for each omelet
1Tbsp, oil (if not using a non-stick pan)
Tools that might be useful to make this recipe
Vita Craft Light Premium Red Frying Pan 20cm
Kai Select100 Vegetable Cutter & Spinner
Kai Multi-Purpose Heat Resistant Spatula (Black)
Instructions
- To prepare the brown rice, measure 300 g of the raw rice and rinse off 2 - 3 times. If your rice cooker has a brown rice measurements, use that to fill the water. If not you can add 600 ml water to your rice cooker and let the brown rice soak for 1 hour before cooking. When you cook, just cook as you would with normal white rice. Once the rice is cooked, place the cooked rice in a big mixing bowl and prepare the other ingredients.
- To prepare the dressing, use a grater to grate the lemon skin to get the zest. It is good to use an organic lemon as you will be consuming the skin. Squeeze the lemon and put the zest and the lemon juice in a little jar with 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, a teaspoon of natural salt and a pinch of black pepper and shake well.
- Soak the Halloumi cheese in water for 10 minutes to remove the salt. Halloumi cheese is preserved in salt so this will be a bit too salty to use directly in the recipe. Rinse off the salt and dice it in bite size. In a nonstick ceramic pan, pan-fry the cheese so that it has a "grilled" look on it. Add it to the bowl of rice.
- Mince the onion and garlic and add it into the same pan that the cheese was grilled in so that you don't need to add additional oil and salt to it. Stir-fry the onion and garlic till it is transparent and sprinkle a dash of black pepper to taste. Add this to the bowl of rice.
- Cut the grilled red pepper into bite size. Chop the parsley and add them to the rice. Pour 1 - 2 tablespoons of the lemon zest dressing to the rice and gently mix in the ingredients. Compared to the traditional "fried rice" this will be less oil per serving.
- To make the egg omelet, crack 3 eggs into a small mixing bowl and scramble with a fork well. Pour this to the non-stick pan and mix and heat so that the egg will loosely bind. Add one bowl of the rice mix to the side closer to the handle. With a spatula, start to coat the rice with the egg and slide it to the side away from the handle. Flip the egg on to a place and shape well. With a kitchen paper you can shape the omelet and decorate with some parsley. (watch the video for details!)
- Dice the tomatoes and mix with chopped parsley and a dash of the dressing to serve on the side of the omelet.
Enjoy!
We have also prepared this recipe into a video! Check our YouTube channel here.... with our chef Leah making sure our flavours are on point!
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