Tenshindon – Crab & Shrimp Omelette on Rice

When I first started working on egg recipes, there were certain common dishes that I wanted to avoid. This wasn't because they weren't good or interesting, but because I wanted to focus more on recipes that my readers might be less familiar with. If I give you an omelette you're probably not going to say 'wow I've never seen an omelette before.' I've had a lot of fun digging a bit deeper and exploring some less familiar ground, but when I came across tenshindon, I was reminded of two very important things - that people around the world have very different takes on very universal foods, and that there's always something new to discovery even in well-trodden territory. To that end, I give you an omelette. And what an omelette.

Tenshindon (also called tenshinhan) is a Japanese dish with Chinese origins (or at least Chinese inspiration). Made with seafood (generally crab) and served with rice and a sweet/sour sauce, it's a dish that's beguiling and enchanting in it's simplicity. The omelette itself is light and savoury with flavours that manage to be complex yet conducive to the relatively mild taste of crab and shrimp. The sauce is tangy and sweet, and a far cry from the cloying fluorescent nightmare that usually passes for sweet and sour sauce in the West. When it all comes together, it's an example of my absolute favourite type of cooking - the kind that relies on quality ingredients and simple techniques.

The recipes is named after Tianjin, China, though there's no consensus about the connection between the place and the meal. As this article from the South China Morning Post explains, there are a few competing origin stories with differing connections to Tianjin itself. One story links the recipe to Rai Rai Ken restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, which famously introduced the world to shoyu ramen in 1910. The story goes that the third-generation owner, who had just returned from serving in the Sino-Japanese war, was asked to whip up a very quick meal for a customer. He threw together a crab omelette and topped it with the sweet-and-sour sauce he already had on hand, then named it after the city of Tianjin, which was well-known in Japan (thanks in no small part to the fact that it was full of Japanese soldiers at the time). If this is true, then the Tianjin part of the name is used only to evoke Chinese-ness. However, a competing story suggests a more direct connection; an Osaka restaurateur originally from Shandong was trying to make use of the cheap blue crabs and rivers shrimp available during the economically depressed post-war years. He developed the recipe based on the frugal, shareable one-dish meals that he'd known during leaner times back home in China. This story seems a little bit more directly connected to Tianjin and China in general, but it's not air-tight either.  Tianjin isn't actually in Shandong, but is a very large port city NEAR Shandong. As with the Tokyo-based story, it's conceivable that Tianjin was still used because of its familiarity amongst the Japanese public.

The two stories are simple enough on the surface, but their juxtaposition is fascinating because of the pre- and post-war factors. The Tokyo origin story frames the recipe in the context of imperialist and expansionist war-time culture, making it a sort of 'souvenir' of Japan's attempts to widen its influence and control. The Osaka origin story reflects a very different Japan - one reeling from defeat and adapting to economic hardship. Of course it's possible that neither origin story is true - though if that's the case, the differences between the two stories still speak to role of food in the Japanese identity.

Regardless of the dish's origins, it's a great example of how Japan's propensity for adapting far-flung recipes to suit that national palate. Many recipes we now think of as typically Japanese are, in fact, Japanese takes on foreign foods. Tempura was adapted from a Portuguese dish for example, while ramen and gyoza originated from Chinese dishes. Tenshindon is also part of a much more modern Japanese food cannon, as are all of the 'don' recipes (gyudon, okyakodon, etc.) The word donburi (丼) means 'bowl.' This word gets truncated to don when it comes at the end of a term - for example gyudon (beef bowl), katsudon (pork cutlet bowl), or tenshindon (Tianjin bowl).  This bit of naming isn't terribly surprising or fascinating on it's own, but the idea of serving an entire meal in a single bowl was once a rather revolutionary and counter-culture idea in Japan. Rice was served separately as part of a meal, to be eaten with other dishes - not underneath them. But donburi are very convenient, and that held a lot of sway during the economic growth of the Meiji period (1868-1912). Donburi dishes took off in popularity precisely because they combined rice and toppings in a simple bowl, which proved perfect for busy workers in need of a snack or meal. They were, in a sense, Japanese fast food; portable, easy to eat, easy to make, filling, and delicious. The first successful donburi recipes rode a wave of change in Japanese food culture, opening up a world of possibilities in the 'stuff on rice' food genre. Tenshindon takes things one step further by adding a particularly bold and thick sauce, and it makes for one of my absolute favourite rice-bowl recipes. I hope you'll give it a try.