A Japanese dish named after a Chinese city
The origin of "tenshindon" is unclear, but you can easily find it at almost every Chinese restaurant in Japan. We'll show you how to make it.
I first came across a Japanese-Chinese dish called tenshindon (天津丼 tiānjīn jǐng) on a Chinese cooking show on TV. “Tenshin” is Tianjin, a port city in northern China, while “don” in Japanese describes a rice bowl that comes with various toppings (what the Chinese know as a gàifàn 盖饭). It seemed strange to me that I’d never heard of this dish named after a Chinese city. The origin of tenshindon is unclear, but you can easily find it at almost every Chinese restaurant in Japan.
Tenshindon is basically a crab omelet on rice with a savory and hearty sauce. Sometimes the omelet contains other ingredients, such as shrimp, which is what we’ll be using today.
YIELD
Serves 1
TIME
25 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 45 g crab meat (or imitation crab meat), shredded
- 4 medium or large shrimps, chopped
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 2 shiitake mushrooms, chopped
- 3 tablespoon cooking oil
- 3 green onions, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
- 1 cup chicken broth or water
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- pinch of salt
- pinch of black pepper
- 1 teaspoon starch mixed with 1 teaspoon water
- Rice
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pour 1 cup of chicken broth or water into a small pot. Add the chopped shiitake mushrooms, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce, a pinch of salt and black pepper to taste. Bring the pot to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes over low heat. Thicken the sauce with 1 teaspoon of starch and 1 teaspoon of water.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in a non-stick pan. Fry the chopped shrimps and shredded crab meat over medium heat for about 1 minute. Mix the shrimp, crab meat, and 2/3 of the chopped green onions with the beaten egg.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in the pan. Pour in the egg mixture and cook over medium heat. When the omelet is about half-cooked, turn it over with a spatula.
- Put the cooked rice in a small bowl and transfer upside-down onto a plate.
- Lay the omelet on top of the rice and pour the sauce over. Garnish with the rest of the chopped green onions.
The China Project Eats is a weekly column.
