Try this life hack to get the most out your eel chips

This 20 July marked a special day in Japan known as Doyo Ushi no Hi. It’s a date tied in with Chinese astrology that is said to coincide with the hottest days of the year. An old custom of this day says that eating a food that begins with the letter “u” brings health and good fortune.

Over time the most popular of these “u” foods was unagi, known in English as eel.

However, due to overconsumption, the eel population has been in decline, causing the fish to become a threatened species. Even for those who don’t give a hoot about the environment, this means trouble in that prices are steadily climbing. Various groups have been working on solutions to this problem such as raising catfish that taste just like eel.

But perhaps the most elegant solution was developed by Lawson convenience stores and leading maker of rainbow chips, Calbee: eel flavored potato chips. By simulating the savor of the slippery sea dwellers, these chips are a more sustainable solution to the current eel crisis.

Inspired by this creativity, our writer Ahiruneko took things one step further with a revolutionary new recipe! One of the most popular ways to consume eel is atop a bowl of rice in a dish known as unagi-don, so why not unagi-chip-don?

Here’s the recipe. You may want to bookmark this page because it might be hard to remember.

Ingredients

  • 1 bag of Calbee Grilled Eel Potato Chips
  • 1 serving of rice

Step 1

Open a bag of Calbee Grilled Eel Potato Chips.

Step 2

Put chips onto rice, evenly is preferred.

Et voila! Ahiruneko was surprised that this recipe, which he admits was intended to be a goof, tasted even better than he expected. The eel flavor came through and reminded him of a light bowl of real unagi-don on a blistering hot day. However, the texture of the chips gave it a whole new element of enjoyment.

Next he added some real eel sauce to the mix for an even more authentic feel.

Strangely, the more he ate, the more it began to taste like the extremely tender meat of actual eel. Then he realized the humidity from the rice was making the chips softer, almost as if they were transforming into eel. How awesome is that?

Completely energized by his discovery, Ahiruneko was eager to share it with his coworkers. He first approached Yuichiro Wasai with a fresh bowl of unagi-chip-don.

▼ Yuichiro: “It’s all right. You think it might be better without the chips though?”

Sadly, Yuichiro turned out to be a man without vision. Nevertheless, Ahiruneko assures all of us that putting eel flavored potato chips on a bowl of rice is not just a delicious snack but a great way to help the fragile ecosystem.

If you don’t have eel chips in your country, then just substitute it with whatever threatened-species-flavored chips are sold there. Failing that, um, I dunno… Pepsi chips?

Photos: SoraNews24
[ Read in Japanese ]