Soboro Don (Minced Chicken + Egg Rice Bowl)

In Japanese, “soboro” refers to the technique of cooking things into fine pieces — soboro don is a rice bowl made with minced meat, usually chicken, and eggs scrambled into little bits. The chicken is lightly seasoned with soy sauce, cooking wine, mirin, and ginger, making it just a little sweet and ginger-y. It makes a perfect little lunchbox with some rice + veggies! Making a chicken-shaped rice ball, v optional but so cute!!

I used:

• 1 scallion, whites only, thinly sliced
• 1/2 lb ground chicken
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp shaoxing wine
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp grated ginger, ~approximately 1 inch piece
• cornstarch slurry (optional): 1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water
• 3 eggs, seasoned with a splash of mirin and a pinch of salt
• white rice
• cooked frozen peas (you could also use alternate veggies of choice such as corn or snap peas)

To make:

• heat up oil over medium heat, add in scallion whites and sauté for ~minute until fragrant
• then add in ground chicken and gently smash to flatten (this is so that it doesn’t end up with stringy bits), then break up into small chunks using a spatula until the meat is ~90% cooked
• add in the sauce and let simmer for ~2-3 minutes until mostly evaporated
• give the cornstarch slurry a stir to reincorporate any settled cornstarch, pour into the chicken and let simmer for ~1-2 minutes to thicket
• season with salt to taste and remove chicken from the pan
• heat up oil over medium-low heat and add eggs to pan, aggressively scramble with chopsticks/spatula to make small grains of eggs
• serve with rice and veggies
• I formed my rice in a chicken-shaped onigiri using corn for the nose, seaweed for the eyes, and corn for the comb. Wet your hands with water to prevent your hands from sticking to the rice during the shaping process!