Can swamp eels be used for unagi like American or Japanese eels

Hi for anyone interested, the chef himself has put up videos of his recipe, and techniques. Apologies for the long post; I know it's an old thread lol...just thought I'd post it just in case:) Omuraisu recipe:

30g chicken thigh,70g onions,15g seasonal greens (he's using komatsuna),10g any mushrooms (he's using king oyster), 150g cold rice, 10g butter, 200ml eggs (about 3.5 eggs), demi-glace sauce (36 cl? for flavouring rice, and 36cl? for pouring over). (He says he uses these amounts to suit the rice-mould he uses for plating up).

He has detailed videos regarding the omelette-making; here is one. Pertinent points he mentions are:

1. Usually he uses 3 eggs, with a 21-22cm frypan. The size of the pan is important.
2. Since 2 eggs is better for at home, he is demonstrating with 2 in this video. He flavours with salt only, but says you can flavour it how you like. If you add things with a water base to the egg, like milk or cream, it makes it more difficult.
3. (1:20-) 3 frypans: 18 cm, 20cm frypans are good sizes for 2 eggs. 24cm pan is a bit harder. (26cm pans are too big, although they are probably common in households - he doesn't demo with this one).

4. (2:18-) 3 important points for a fluffy omelette:

   a) the temperature must be JUST right before eggs are poured in. It is difficult to turn the omelette if the temperature is too low or too high because the eggs stick.

   b) mix thoroughly and quickly when eggs are poured into the pan, left hand shakes the pan back and forth, right hand mixes egg around with cooking chopsticks. Gather in the edges that tend to cook quickly.

   c) the 'ton ton' tapping/rolling the omelette into shape at the end - do this quickly to keep the eggs half runny. You should be exposing the omelette to as little heat as possible here. This is tricky so remember the following points: tip the pan up at a 45 degree angle when doing this. Practice with a cloth - imagine the eggs closest to you in the pan, then you tap the pan so that the eggs shift towards the edge of the pan furthest away from you, by which time they have formed into an oblong shape. When there, you flip the omelette completely over in the pan to seal the open edge. When sealed, turn the omelette around bit by bit using the tapping technique (getting as little heat as possible in the omelette), then turn onto a plate pushed up against the pan in a 'V' shape.

5. (5:08-) He then demonstrates these points with each different size pan. He uses high heat, but says you can start on a medium heat. Mix eggs thoroughly, without putting air in them (back and forth motion with chopsticks). Oil pan thoroughly, remove excess before adding eggs. The oil parts when it heats up. He runs some egg over the pan with a chopstick to test the heat - it should make a light sizzling sound and cook straight away. If it makes a high 'chhhh' sound and they overcook, he lowers the temperature by pouring in more oil for a second, then pouring it out again. The initial scrambling determines the softness of the final omelette. When done, remove from heat and scrape around the outside to prepare for the tapping stage; bang the pan to loosen the egg.

6. He has a rubber spatula on hand to unstick eggs if they stick; if they are stuck to the pan, no amount of tapping will move them. He recommends a non-stick pan for home cooks. Once it is at the farthest end of the pan and starting to be shaped into an omelette shape, tap and turn the omelette while adjusting the heat level by taking the pan on and off the heat, to shape quickly. Then flip completely and put back on heat to close the open edge. Take off heat and tap to turn the omelette bit by bit once through in the pan, then tip onto the plate.

7.He says that the smaller pans create a shorter and plumper omelette which looks taller. The bigger pan (which he doesn't recommend) creates an omelette which is longer and not as plump. The big pan is difficult to cook with because the high heat level cooks the eggs faster (thus he keeps the pan tipped up while cooking, and only cooks at one end of the pan).

8. He says that even professionals can't do this in one or two tries; that lots of practice is necessary - but that when you succeed it's extremely satisfying, so he encourages you to 'Let's try!':)

ps. Here's his omelette hack videofor an easier way.

pps. To cut the omelette open, he says it's important to use a very sharp knife. You make an initial cut in the centre, then cut forward to one end of the omelette, then draw the knife back through to the other end to split open.

The closest thing you are likely to find in the US is posole which may also be labeled as "nixtamal" or "mote pelado". Posole can be found dried, canned, or frozen in most latin grocery stores or online. Look specifically for ones that say they contain corn processed with some alkali such as lime, cal (sodium hydroxide), lye, or sodium carbonate.

The problem in the US is that the term hominy has many meanings, as the Anson Mills website explains:

In America we know hominy as dried whole kernel corn that has been first steeped and then cooked in a culinary lime solution to remove the outer clear coating of the corn kernel, or pericarp, and also to work a miraculous nutrition and flavor transformation within the kernel in a process called nixtamalization. Fresh hominy can be used as is for stews (posole in Spanish), or it can be ground, still wet, to masa or chopped into fresh hominy grits (an extinct foodway). Or it can be dried to make whole hominy (also known as posole or hominy). Dried hominy can then be milled to grits or cornmeal (both are extinct in the United States), or to flour (called “instant masa”). This next definition of hominy is arcane: hominy grist (not “grits”) is any fresh-milled corn grits that comes out of a stone mill. The last statement about hominy is a classic Southern take on confusing terms: the popular Southern term for a dish of freshly prepared coarse grits is “hominy.” In New Orleans and now fading in other Southern ports, whole hominy is called “big hominy” and freshly prepared coarse grits is called “little hominy.”

Additionally, many canned hominy product's available in the US, such as Manning's (and even some claiming to be "Mexican Style" like Juanita's) are steam peeled rather than by soaking in an alkali solution like most traditional hominy and posole. These will often try to turn this into a positive by claiming "never processed with lye".