Chicken Soboro

Konnyaku --- Cooked in dashi shoyu, mirin and sugar.

Aburaage and onion slices --- Cooked with ketchup, oyster sauce and chili pepper powder. This is my own idea and yes, was a HIT! (Yuppi and I loved it.) Topped with edamame for green.

Cabbage --- Blanched, tossed with sakura ebi, salt and sesame oil.

Chicken thigh --- Marinated in lemon juice, salt and black pepper overnight, then broiled.




Rice --- Topped with ume-okaka and salted sockeye salmon.

Chicken breast --- Marinated in BBQ-ish sauce of worcester sauce, shoyu and ketchup overnight, then broiled.

Asuparagas --- Blanched, tossed with syoyu, salt and nori (seaweed).

Simple tamagoyaki of eggs, sugar, shoyu and salt. There are many variations of tamagoyaki, but I like this type best for bento.




This type of bento is generally called Sanshoku soboro bento. Consists of scrambled eggs, ground chicken (sometimes pork or beef), a green vegetable (spinach, snow peas, edamame or this time I used asparagus) and rice underneath them. Sanshoku means three colours (green, yellow, brown) and soboro means crumbles of ground meat, egg, fish or tofu, and so on. Everyone makes their soboro into itty bitty grains, but they are literally grainy-flaky and a bit hard to eat because they drop down easily when you eat. For bento, I make mine into a bit larger pieces for easy eating (it's really important that your lunch is easy to eat). I usually use chicken thighs instead of store-ground chicken which has a lot of fat. I think chicken thighs are better for this dish than chicken breasts or tenders are because they are a bit too dry in texture and bland in taste, though, I actually prefer chicken tenders to thighs for other dishes.

I remove skin and fat from chicken thighs and chop up the meat roughly with a knife. Then I add the usual sweet salty sauce of shoyu, mirin and sugar, and to keep the meat moist and tender, add a tiny bit of potato starch as well. I cook it without covering until just some of the sauce remains in the bottom of the pan. I always want meat to be moist. :)