hanjuku egg
By popular request (yeah, here at ramen hq, we consider one request to be popular), we decided to delve into the world of real cooking and experimented with making hanjuku eggs. After some research, trial and error, and mixing and matching of different recipes, we believe we’re off to a good start.

hanjuku eggTo prepare the marinade, mix 1 cup of water with 1/3 cup of shoyu (3 parts water to 1 part shoyu). Bring the mixture to a boil in a pot or just zap it in the microwave. Once it starts to boil, mix in 4 teaspoons of brown sugar until it completely dissolves. Set it aside and be sure to allow some time to let it cool off.

One of the keys to a good hanjuku egg is to properly soft-boil the egg. First, bring 4 cups of water to a boil, then add 1 cup of cold water to cool the boiling water (keep the fire going though). This step is essential for preventing cracked eggs (believe us!). Gently put the eggs in the pot and boil for 7 to 7-1/2 minutes. Be sure to slowly stir the eggs ocassionally to help the yolk cook evenly and to keep it centered.

Once the eggs are done, immediately put them into a cup/bowl of ice water for about 3-4 minutes. This will cause the egg white to shrink away from the shell slightly, which will make it easier to shell the eggs.

Shell the eggs: work slowly and be extremely careful. Because the eggs aren’t hard-boiled, the egg white will be very delicate and prone to break. This was the hardest step (for us, anyway) in making hanjuku eggs.

hanjuku eggNext, put the eggs in the marinade and refrigerate overnight. Marinating for a shorter or longer time will affect the strength of the flavor.

When ready to eat, the egg whites should be a nice dark tan color. The yolk will be a golden orange and have an almost jello-like consistency. Itadakimasu!

For more advanced cooks, hanjuku egg marinades usually call for mirin, a sweet Japanese rice wine used in cooking. Since we didn’t have any mirin handy, we substituted brown sugar. Feel free to experiment with different amounts of marinade ingredients. Also try adding some vinegar, or even using instant ramen soup mix. If you have your own hanjuku recipe, or have any tips you’d like to share, please leave a comment below or send us a note!

References: Joyce’s playing, which in turn was adapted from a Japanese tv cooking show, and this Japanese recipe which also shows how the egg looks after 2 to 60 hours of marinating

hanjuku egg(This is what the yolk looks like after boiling for just 5 minutes. It’s still edible and delicious, but much too runny.)

7 thoughts on “hanjuku ajitama (seasoned egg) recipe”

  1. Thanks for the recipe, YYYYYUUUUMMYYY!!! I wanted to share this, why don’t you try mixing purple with it. You must have heard about it since it’s doing a lot of rounds in the celebrity circuit and is all over the news. Its tastes amazing with everything, can mix it in cocktails and smoothies, try it and let me know if you liked it or not. It is a health drink which is made up of 7 fruits juice and is high on antioxidants and you know about antioxidants right? it prevents premature ageing, what else do growing women want huh, LOL!! If you want more information to check whether what I am saying is right you can get it at http://www.drinkpurple.com . You can get it at GNC and drug stores. Could not help sharing it!

  2. soy sauce, sake and mirin is what we use in our house for the egg seasoning.
    We put the eggs in the water before putting the pot on the burner, rotating them gently as the water temp builds up. once the water reaches a gentle boil, we boil them for four minutes before we remove them. perfect yolk!
    so, from then, we put them in ziplock baggies (small sized, enough to fit two eggs per baggie) and allow them to sit at least overnight in the marinade.
    our typical toppings are roasted beef (just email me for my roast beef recipe or pictures of our typical bowls), pickled red ginger, chopped fresh green onion (we grow it outside), naruto (can be found at any Asian market for like, 2.99 a roll), roasted nori (about 4.99 for 10 huge sheets you can cut to taste), 1 slice hardboiled egg and 1 seasoned egg.
    I also have a from scratch soup recipe, if you want it heh. I’d love to share good ramen with anyone who has an interest (and yes, I can also make gyoza, tempura batter and tonkotsu for sides).

    Every sunday, we make a week’s worth of ingredients (make 2 roasts, chop and season a campell’s soup sized can of bamboo, boil a dozen eggs and season a dozen eggs (along with make tonkotsu or anything else we might want throughout the week). We spend 3 hours in the kitchen, but anytime we want a delicious bowl of ramen, we just pull out the ingredients, nuke/boil/heat ’em, and we’re ready to rock in minutes. In fact, sometimes we get so lazy we just use a package of ramen brick to add our toppings to instead of actually preparing our own broth and noodles.

    Like I said, message me for pictures or questions and I’d be glad to help. My wife and I are college kids, so its funny as hell to tell people we eat ramen at least 1 meal every day and watch them think we’re eating like, just ramen bricks when in fact we eat better than most grown families! lol

    -Ville

    1. I would love to see the pictures you talk about! I am also very interested in the recipes you use to create the stocks for the miso, tonkotsu, etc. Please share your wealth of ramen knowledge!

  3. Ville/anonymous: thanks for the great info! I would love to know the amount of shoyu, mirin and sake you use in your marinade if you’d care to share. And yes!! I would love to know your soup recipe! Sorry, I can’t email you. I didn’t see your contact info anywhere. But please do feel free to leave another comment, or you can email it me by using the “contact” link at the top.

  4. There does seem to be a lot of sugar in Japanese food and most of the so-called savoury dishes I have tried seem to be quite sweet.

    For example, people often seem to heap sugar into hot pot dishes like sukiyaki and nabe, as well as savoury meat dishes such as nikku jaga.

    There’s no denying that Western desserts on the whole use too much sugar, but I’m finding the same to be true of Japanese main courses. They seem to more sweet than salty, while still fairly bland. Is this a fair appraisal of the overall Japanese taste?

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