Craving udon noodles after a recent Sydney trip where we gorged ourselves often at our favourite Japanese place Mappen (http://www.mappen.com.au/) I decided to try to recreate the experience. One of the highlights of a trip to Mappen is their Ontama or Onsen eggs. Basically poached eggs in a shell. And so tasty when added to a bowl of soup. They need to be cooked slowly at a medium temperature for a long time. I have tried to cook them a few ways in the past, including inside a thermos of hot water, to varying results. So, with instructions from my Momofuku book, I thought I would give it another try.

The eggs need to be cooked in water needs to be at about 145 F (you can convert this to celcius yourselves. It’s an American book, ok?) for 45 minutes. There is a slight risk of salmonella poisoning here, due to the porous nature of eggs and bacteria found on their shells and the lack of boiling water and all, but as Anthony Bourdain likes to say “You only go round once”, so personally, I think it’s worth the (incredibly small) risk.

So the eggs turned out close to perfect. Here’s me cracking one into the soup.

And the results were simply divine. The broth for the soup was tasty. The beef was pretty good. And the pickles and daikon salad (again! Iknow!) was delicious.