Crispy Rice Patties with Vegetables & Eggs

Late August. I accepted the book deal. Sarah, the agent, negotiated terms I don't fully understand — subsidiary rights, audio rights, foreign rights, a vocabulary that belongs to a world I have just entered and don't yet speak fluently, the way I didn't speak Japanese fluently three years ago and now I mostly do. I will learn the vocabulary. I will learn the world. The learning is what I do. The learning is the Nakamura inheritance: you don't know how to do it, so you learn, and the learning is slow, and the slowness is not failure, it is patience, and patience is the only speed that produces dashi.

I made natto — fermented soybeans, the polarizing Japanese food that Fumiko loved and most Americans cannot tolerate. The beans are slimy, pungent, stringy, and to the uninitiated, disgusting. To me they are breakfast. I eat them on hot rice with a raw egg and soy sauce and the taste is umami in its most concentrated, most unapologetic form. Natto does not try to be likeable. Natto is itself. The analogy to my writing is too obvious to need stating, but I am stating it anyway: the writing is itself. The writing is not trying to be likeable. The writing is natto. Some people will love it. Some people will not. The people who love it will love it deeply, specifically, in the way that natto-lovers love natto: with commitment and without apology.

Miya goes to Brian's for the last week of summer. The handoff is smooth — she packs her backpack with the elephant and two chapter books and walks to Brian's car and waves without looking back. The not-looking-back has become her signature move, the gesture of a child who is secure in both houses, who carries both homes in her backpack, who walks between two worlds with the ease of someone who has always lived between two worlds, because she has, because her mother did, because the between is the family inheritance, passed down like recipe cards and chipped bowls, the between that is not a deficit but a country.

I can’t give you natto—not here, not in a recipe that will land in someone’s weeknight rotation between soccer practice and a work call—but I can give you what natto taught me: hot rice, an egg, and the confidence to let the food be exactly what it is without apologizing. These crispy rice patties are what I made the morning after I signed the contract, standing at the stove with leftover rice and whatever vegetables were softening in the crisper drawer, and they were perfect in the specific, committed way that only unfussy food can be. Make them with the same unapologetic attention you would bring to anything worth loving.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 cups cooked short-grain white or brown rice, cooled
1 cup finely chopped vegetables (such as scallions, shredded carrot, and baby spinach)
2 tablespoons soy sauce, divided
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons neutral oil (such as avocado or grapeseed), divided
4 large eggs
Sesame seeds and sliced scallions, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Mix the rice patties. In a large bowl, combine the cooked rice, chopped vegetables, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and black pepper. Stir well until evenly mixed. Divide into 8 equal portions and press each firmly into a compact patty about 1/2 inch thick.
Pan-fry until crispy. Heat 1 tablespoon of neutral oil in a large nonstick or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add 4 patties and cook without moving them for 4–5 minutes, until a deep golden crust forms on the bottom. Flip carefully and cook another 3–4 minutes. Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining oil and patties.
Fry the eggs. Reduce heat to medium. In the same skillet, cook eggs to your preference—sunny-side up leaves the yolk runny and rich, which is the point. Season lightly with the remaining 1 tablespoon soy sauce drizzled around the pan.
Serve. Place 2 crispy rice patties on each plate and top with a fried egg. Scatter sesame seeds and scallions over the top if using. Eat while everything is hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Crispy Rice Patties with Vegetables & Eggs — The Natto Inheritance