TORISOBORO in Katsuyo Kobayashi's style

Minced Chicken and egg bowl

Soft texture is different to ordinary kinds. This dish is my two sons' favorite.

Photos: 1996/09/29 , Made on: 1997/09/01

Reference book: "OBENTOU ZUKURI HA TO ODOROKU HIKETSUSYU" p.53 (1984) "21SEIKI books" by Katsuyo Kobayashi, SHUFU TO SEIKATSUSHA \770

In ordinary recipes, there is used a little soy sauce and Sake as just ingredients for seasoning, but in the Katsuyo's recipe, soy sauce, Sake and water make the soft and thick texture. In our recipe, Sake is a substitute for water. The sweetness of Sake is enough for cooking it without water. But make sure to use high grade Sake.

To cook

1 1 Ingredients (for lunch serves: 4-5)

In our recipe In Katsuyo's recipe

Ground chicken thigh meat 600 g 100 g

Soy sauce 4 tablespoons 2 teaspoons

Sake 1.5 cups 2 teaspoons

Water - 4 tablespoons

Sugar - 2 teaspoons

MIRIN^*1) 1 tablespoon -

Eggs^*2) 10 1

Boiled KINUSAYA (Chinese peas) 2 packs some

Cooked rice 5 Goes^*3) -

*1: It's similar to Sake. A sweet liquid flavoring.
*2: It should be scrambled eggs.
*3: 1 go = 180 cc If you have Sake, you can make a substitute for MIRIN. Put sugar into same amount of Sake. Here you have instant Mirin.
That written recipe is for our dinner amount, so it's quite a lot. Usually half is cooked for lunch, but 4 Goes of rice are necessary for my family.
Instead of water, I use Sake which is expensive, but I don't use any sugar.

2 Put all ingredients in a saucepan and mix well. Katsukyo Kobayashi says "There is a knack to mixing with a whisk. But I don't like to wash the whisk, so I always use chopsticks for that. And then heat the skillet. Cook over a medium flame, stirring constantly for 10-15 minutes till you get the texture you want, then remove from heat.

3 This is an arranged variation of Katsuyo Kobayashi's style. Fill a lunch-box 1/2 full with rice. Arrange the scrambled eggs topping on the rice. And put rice on the egg topping. And then arrange the chicken and some green colored vegetables (In this picture, it's used Kinusaya)on the surface of the rice. It is finished.

4 This is the side of the lunch-box. Could you see the egg in rice layers. It is actually Atsushi's(a second-year student in high school)lunch-box. The height is 6 cm and the capacity is 1.2 lit. The weight exceeded a scale for below 1 kg. Compare it with my lunch-box(the height is 3 cm). Their size is same, but I usually put rice 2-2.5 cm height for mine and Atsushi puts rice closely packed for his 6 cm lunch-box!