Soboro

Soboro is a cooking method in which minced ingredients such as ground meats, shrimp and eggs are cooked in a soy sauce based sauce until they absorb all the seasonings and become  almost dried.  To achieve a fine crumbled texture, you need to use a few sets of chopsticks (see photo) stirring often to break up the meat, especially at the beginning.  This might not be necessary I guess if you don’t really care about the texture.  Chicken and eggs are the most common ingredients for soboro.

This is one of the Japanese home-style foods that you don’t really see on a menu at a restaurant.  Instead you will most likely find it at a deli or a convenience store that carries take out bento boxes (lunch boxes) since it is a typical lunch box meal.  This particular bento box is called soboro bento, and typically it has chicken soboro, egg soboro and some kind of a green vegetable.  This meal, much like niku miso, stays tasty even when it is served at room temperature; so, people like to use it for lunch boxes.  The combination of this salty and sweet chicken, egg and rice is just so perfect and sometimes I get a very strong craving for it.  If you are interested in soboro bento, please check the separate recipe.  Here I discuss just the chicken soboro.

You can sprinkle chicken soboro on steamed rice, pasta, salad, or cooked vegetables, and it adds nice flavor.  It can be kept in the refrigerator for about five days. It freezes well also; so, make a lot and you can always have it handy.

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Chicken Soboro

You can sprinkle chicken soboro on steamed rice, pasta, salad, or cooked vegetables, and it adds nice flavor. It can be kept in the refrigerator for about five days. It freezes well also; so, make a lot and you can always have it handy.

Course: Main

Cuisine: Japanese

Servings: 4 -5

Author: Essence of Japan

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground chicken
• 6 tablespoon soy sauce
• 6 tablespoon sake
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger

Instructions

1. Heat a skillet and add all the ingredients over medium heat. Stir with a few sets of chopsticks as shown in the photo below to break up the meat, and cook until all the liquid is absorbed and almost dry. It could take up to 10 minutes.
   Turn off heat and set aside to let it cool.