Datemaki (rolled omelet) is a traditional Japanese New Years food. It is quite similar to tamagoyaki which is every day home cooking. You can also find tamagoyaki and sushi restaurants where it is paced on top of rice and served as a type of sushi. While tamagoyaki is usually made in a fry pan, datemaki is baked.
There are a variety of different ways to make datemaki but I used a very simple recipe. This actually might have been the easiest of the recipes that we used for our osechi-ryori
1. You will first need to prepare the pan in which you will bake the datemaki. I used a square pan (8X8) but you can use whatever type of pan that you have but if you decided to use a larger pan then you should double this recipe. Using a piece of parchment paper and a stapler, create a box that is about 2 inches deep. Fasten the corners with a stapler. You will be pouring the datemaki mixture in here later on.
2. You basically just take all of these ingredients and put them into a mixer and mix until smooth. Simple!
Ingredients:
1 sheet of hanpen (fish cake)
4 eggs
1 tbsp of cooking sake
4 tbsp of sugar
3. Pour the mixture into the pan lined with your parchment paper box and put it in the over at 400 F for about 25 minutes.
4. Remove egg from the paper and lay down on a bamboo mat rolling mat with the dark side facing up and roll into a scroll like shape. Make sure that you roll it as tightly as possible. **Make sure that you do this step while the egg is still hot.
5. Cover the bamboo wrapped omelet with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. I kept it in the wrapped in the refrigerator over night with no problem. When you are ready to serve it remove it from the wrap and cut it into slices (about 1 inch) and serve!
