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Murungai Keerai Omurice or Japanese rice omelettes with drumstick leaves

Omurice belongs in the yoshoku (or western-style Japanese) repertoire for its combination of omelettes, fried rice—and ketchup. Here, I’ve added another Indian twist by way of murungai leaves, which are an equally classic pairing with eggs in Tamil households. Because the Japanese serve omurice with ketchup, so do we. Loved by kids and adults alike and a fabulous, simple way to get a quick dinner together and good quotient of nutritious murungai leaves into your diet while you're at it.
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Ingredients
  

For the rice

  • 1 cup day-old cooked rice, or use 1 cup just-cooked rice, laid out to dry under a fan
  • 2 finely chopped onions
  • 3-4 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 ” piece of ginger, minced
  • 2 green chillies, chopped
  • Salt to taste or use soy sauce
  • 1 cup of a sharp cheese like cheddar (optional)

For the omelettes

  • 8 eggs (2 eggs per person—this makes 4 hearty servings)
  • 2-3 cups murungai leaves (1/4-1/2 cup per omelette)
  • Salt to taste
  • Oil or butter to grease the pan
  • 1 cup chopped vegetables of your choice: beans, carrots, corn, mushrooms (optional)
  • 1 cup chicken breast pieces, finely diced (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Note that you can adjust the proportions given here according to the number of people being served. This recipe is written for a hungry family of 4.

Prepare the fried rice

  • Combine the minced garlic and ginger with the green chillies in a mortar and pound them to a paste. Set aside.
  • Add a little oil to a smoking hot wok and follow at once with the ginger-garlic-chilli paste. Mix well but don’t let this burn.
  • Add the chopped onions and fry until translucent
  • If you're adding extra veggies, add these after the onions: beans, carrots and corn will go in first as they take longer to cook, then mushrooms.
  • If you're using chicken, add the pieces once the vegetables are about half cooked, and fry well until cooked through.
  • Now add the old/cooked-and-dried rice and mix well. Season with either salt or soy sauce.
  • If you’re using cheese, you might just use salt and not soy. Add it last and mix well to combine. Set this rice aside until you’re ready to make the omelettes.

Make the omurice

  • Break and beat the eggs in a bowl, add salt to taste. Set aside.
  • Heat a 9” omelette pan and grease it generously. The flavor of butter goes really well with murungai, but you can just as easily use oil.
  • Keep the flame medium-low the whole way so that the murungai leaves added in the next step don't burn but the egg added later cooks through anyway
  • Now sprinkle about a ¼ to ½ cup of murungai leaves onto the hot stone and let these sizzle for a minute.
  • Gently pour about ¼ of the beaten eggs over the sizzling leaves (2 beaten eggs worth).
  • Once this is nearly cooked (it can be still runny in parts), arrange about a cup or more of the fried rice in the center, and fold one side of the omelette over the rice. Follow by folding over the other side.
  • If the egg is still runny, use 2 spatulas to flip the omurice over, to allow it to heat through from the other side.
  • Allow this to sit for a while till the rice is heated through and transfer to a dinner plate.
  • The omurice's classic shape is an oval. I don't always get that right, but the trick is to keep the omelette thin and to shape it gently with your hands, using a paper towel on top if it’s too hot to handle as you transfer it to a dinner plate.
  • Repeat with the remaining eggs, murungai leaves, and rice.
  • Serve with ketchup on the side or drizzled on top.