Pan Fried Chicken Donburi

This recipe is adapted from Kentaro Kobayashi's Easy Japanese Cooking, Donburi Mania. I love his cookbooks. The recipes are simple, and yet yield delicious meals!

Strictly speaking, mine is not served as a Donburi. My rice is not placed in a bowl, as the kids will probably spill the rice all over while trying to scoop the rice under the meat. A plate will be more convenient for them, and less mess for me =)

For this meal, I omitted the Japanese sweet peppers. Instead, I use the recipe for cooking the chicken thighs.

2 pcs Chicken thighs, bonelss and skin on, approximately 400g

salt and pepper

roasted seaweed

Mixture A

2 tbsp Water

1 tbsp miso

1 tbsp mirin

1/2 tbps Soy Sauce

• Remove fat from chicken and poke several holes in skin with a knife tip. Make slicing cuts into skinless side, about 1 cm apart for more even cooking.
• Heat pan and add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.
• Place chicken thighs in pan, skin side down.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover and cook on medium heat.
• Once browned, turn chicken thighs over.
• Cover again and cook slowly on medium heat.
• Remove excess juices and oil from pan with a paper towel while cooking.
• Once chicken is cooked through, turn skin side down once more.
• Pour in 1/2 tablespoon oil around the edge of pan.
• Cook on high heat until the skin is crispy.
• Remove excess fat and juices again.
• Pour in mixture A.
• Coat both sides well.
• Cut chicken into bite-size pieces.
• Serve rice in bowls and cover with shredded pieces of roasted seaweed.
• Top with the bite-size chicken pieces.

I like the taste of mixture A on the chicken. For bento use, I would probably cut the chicken thighs into bite size pieces before cooking, with the skin removed. Smaller pieces cook faster than a bigger piece, although the rich flavor keeps better in a chicken thigh cooked as a whole. Pan frying these smaller pieces will take a shorter time, and mixture A can be added towards to the end, when the pieces of chicken are cooked through.

I look forward to cooking it for my bento next week =)