Monday, April 25, 2011

Nov 2009 - Soboro Gohan, Another Homey Japanese Meal

This is another one my favorite comfort meals.  My mom used to always make it for us.  It's ground chicken cooked in a soy sauce base served on top of Gohan (rice).  The eggs are scrambled and is sweetened a bit with sugar.  It's a dish that children love, maybe that's why they sweeten the egg :o)  Actually, the sweetness goes with the saltiness of the chicken. Most Yakitori (Grilled Skewered Chicken) places serve this, but not usually with the scrambled egg, they may put a raw Quail Egg on top and then when they present it to you, you mix it all together.  Like I do with my Teriyaki Chicken Bowl, I layer soy sauce dipped nori (seaweed) in between the rice layers and finish with another layer of nori then put the chicken and egg on top.  I made miso soup to go with it :o)

Soboro Gohan

If I have the time I like to grind up my own chicken.  Hubby bought me a meat grinder a couple of Christmas' ago and I love it!  It's fun to grind your own meat!  Japanese markets always sell ground chicken, but most American markets seem to only sell ground turkey and I'm not really sure how this dish would be with turkey, maybe I should try it some day;o) When I do grind the chicken, I use both white & dark meat, so it doesn't come out too dry or too fatty.  

The chicken is flavored with soy sauce, ginger, onion, carrot, mirin (sweet rice wine), sugar, sake and dashi (Bonito Flakes Fish Stock).  I first mix up the dashi, sake, suger and soy sauce together and set it aside.  I then saute the ginger, onion & carrot and add the chicken then immediately add the dashi before the chicken is cooked through.  The key to getting the nice crumbliness of the ground chicken is to add the liquid.  I know some ground beef chili recipes do that too.  Then you wait until all the liquid cooks down to almost nothing.  The scrambled eggs are just flavored with salt, pepper & sugar and I add a dash of milk to it.




It sounds like a strange dish with the sweetened egg, but the savory & sweet really do complement each other!  When you eat it, you can either mix it all together or I like to eat a bite of each side separately or a bite with a little bit of both...your choice!

Miso Soup

I made the miso soup out of leftovers from a previous night of Shabu Shabu. Miso soup is so versatile that you can put just about anything in it!



This one has tofu, chrysanthemum greens, napa cabbage, pork, erynigi mushrooms, Japanese turnips and it's greeens and a light colored/flavored miso.

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