Three Color Torisoboro Gohan: Minced Chicken and Garnish over Rice

Hello loyal readers! Sorry for disappearing but I’ve been really busy with my non-cooking life. I don’t want the blog to stay dormant forever, though, and my husband really wanted me to add this recipe for his new favorite way to eat chicken: minced!
When you think about it, it’s funny: ground beef and ground pork are common enough, but how often do you see ground chicken? Our local supermarket sure doesn’t sell it, so for this recipe, we mince it ourselves. It’s not the most pleasant of kitchen tasks, granted, but it’s not actually hard either…just chop some chicken thigh and breast meat into blocks and put it through a food processor. Takes a minute or two.

Torisoboro Gohan isn’t really a fancy dish, but it’s very flavorful and always seems to be a major hit when I’ve served it to Westerners. To make it really appealing, you want to pair it with brightly colored garnishings – usually green beens and silk-thread eggs – aiming for a tri-color effect at the end.

Ingredients: (for four)

Chicken thighs and breast – 400g
Sake – 4 tablespoons
Soy sauce – 3 tablespoons
Sugar – 3 tablespoons
Ginger – a small piece
Salt

Note: In the photos, portions will seem large because I made it for eight.

Preparation:

Mince the chicken thighs and breast.
Chop the ginger very small.
Put all the ingredients, except the salt, in a pan at medium heat.
Stir continuously as the mixture cooks, being careful to break up all the chicken clumps. It takes some time but just be patient.
When the chicken is totally cooked and crumbled, adjust season to taste with salt.
Prepare greens and eggs (Kinshi Tamago).
Usually I make boiled green beans in salt water for torisoboro gohan. This time I didn’t have green beans so I made Okra instead.
For Kinshi tamago see here. Make Kinshi Tamago (Hiyashi Chuka)
Serve rice in a bowl. Then arrange the minced chicken, greens and silk-thread eggs beautifully over the rice.
In the photo I used “okoge” (slightly burnt rice) but, of course, you can use normal white rice too.