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1
Rinse the rice until the water runs nearly clear. Place in a heavy pot with its measured water and the kombu strip. Cook by the absorption method. When the lid begins to release fragrant steam and the grains have drunk all the water, remove the kombu. The cooked rice should be glossy, discrete, and steaming hot — each grain tender with a faint resistance at its centre.
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2
Divide the just-cooked rice immediately between two bowls. The rice must be served at the moment it leaves the pot: it must be hot enough to partially denature egg protein on contact. A bowl that has been waiting — even briefly — will not deliver sufficient heat to the egg's surface layer. This is where the dish lives or dies: cold or reheated rice produces a uniformly raw, slippery coating and the textural gradient is lost entirely.
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3
Break one egg into a small bowl per serving. Beat gently with chopsticks — two or three strokes only — so that white and yolk are partially combined but streaks of each remain distinct. Full homogenisation removes the textural range the preparation depends upon.
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4
Pour the loosely beaten egg directly over the centre of the hot rice. Add a few drops of soy sauce — no more than 2 ml per bowl. Using chopsticks, fold the egg gently into the rice with slow, turning strokes. Do not beat. The rice's heat will begin to set the egg proteins at the base of the bowl while the upper layer remains liquid-raw. The finished preparation should show a silky, coating richness with visible streaks of white and yolk against the grain — not a uniform pale slick.
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5
Add any optional element — a drop of sesame oil, a small spoonful of broken mentaiko, a piece of umeboshi, or a shaving of katsuobushi — folding in with one or two additional strokes. Serve immediately in the bowl in which it was mixed. The preparation does not hold.