I love cooked soft boiled eggs from Naomi Takayama's recipe book. I cook these eggs somtimes. But I boiled the eggs too long this time! I want to eat them with coriander but that's quite expensive in Tokyo, so I use thinly striped Japanese leek instead.

5 eggs
2tbs oyster sauce
2tbs fish sauce (nam pla)
100ml sake (cheap one is good enough)
50ml soy sauce
salt, vinegar

1. Put enough water in a small pot, bring water to boil, add a bit of salt and vinegar, place eggs (with a ladle) carefully. Boil eggs for 8 minutes.

2. Drain off hot water and cover eggs with cold water, peel them.

3. Put sake, soy sauce, sugar, oyster sauce and fish sauce in a small saucepan, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, add eggs, cook for 3 minutes.

4. Let eggs cool down in a saucepan. I recommend soaking eggs in the sauce for a few hours or overnight (probably safer to keep them in a fridge in Summer time).

Tips: Use cold, refrigerated eggs and cook them with boiling water. This makes the egg shell peel off with ease.

You can reuse the sauce for 2-3 times in a row. (Be careful not to eat too many eggs at once. It might raise the cholesterol level in your blood!)

PS: The original recipe uses 100ml of soy sauce, but I thought it was too salty.