Snackbar rice bowl with karaage chicken
1 HOUR 15 MINUTES + PICKLING + MARINATING SERVES 4 | A LITTLE EFFORT
This colourful rice bowl is comforting, healthy-ish and full of wonderful textures and flavours: from Japanese crunchy fried chicken and zingy pickles, to a gooey, creamy egg yolk and crispy, earthy buckwheat. This recipe is quite involved due to the pickling process, so if you want to save some time just use shop-bought pickles instead.
coriander a bunch, roughly chopped
sunflower oil for deep-frying
mayonnaise 5 tbsp
sushi rice 200g
soy sauce 2 tbsp
toasted sesame oil 1 tbsp
buckwheat 2 tbsp
corn on the cob 1
salad leaves a handful
lime 1/2, juiced
egg yolks 4
gochugaru (Korean chilli flakes) or dried chilli flakes a pinch (optional)
PICKLED DAIKON
rice vinegar 250ml
caster sugar 75g
fine sea salt 1 tsp
daikon Ω, peeled and cut into thin half moons
KARAAGE CHICKEN
chicken thigh fillets 250g, cut into 3cm chunks
ginger finely grated to make 2 tsp
garlic finely grated to make 2 tsp
sake 2 tbsp
soy sauce 3 tbsp
caster sugar 2 tsp
potato starch 100g
ground turmeric 1 tsp
• For the pickle, tip the rice vinegar, sugar and 250ml water into a small pan and gently heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool completely.
• Sprinkle the salt over the daikon in a colander, leave to drain for an hour, then squeeze out any excess water. Tip into a bowl, pour over the cooled pickling liquid and chill for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.
• For the karaage chicken, put the chicken into a small bowl and add the ginger, garlic, sake, soy sauce and sugar. Cover and chill for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.
• To make the coriander mayo, add the coriander to a food processor with 2 tbsp of sunflower oil and blitz to a purée. Transfer to a bowl and fold in the mayo.
• Wash and cook the sushi rice according to pack instructions, then season with the soy sauce and sesame oil, and cover until ready to serve.
• To make the toasted buckwheat, heat a splash of oil in a pan and toast the buckwheat until aromatic and lightly browned.
• To make the sweetcorn, bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil, add the cob, cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until the kernels are tender. Drain, cool slightly then use a large sharp knife to carefully remove the kernels.
• Put the potato starch and ground turmeric onto a plate and mix together. Drain the chicken and dredge the pieces through the flour until completely covered. Fill a pan no more than 1/3 full with oil and heat to 180C or until a cube of bread browns in 30 seconds. Carefully lower some of the chicken into the oil and cook for 4-5 minutes until really crisp and brown, then drain on kitchen paper and season. Repeat with the remaining chicken.
• Toss the salad leaves with lime juice.
• To serve, add a dollop of coriander mayo to the bottom of the bowl, top with rice and create a small indent in the middle to hold an egg yolk. Top with corn, pickled daikon, fried chicken and sprinkle with buckwheat, salt and gochugaru, if you like.
PER SERVING 861 KCALS | FAT 34.3G SATURATES 4.6G | CARBS 112G | SUGARS 37.5G FIBRE 2.2G | PROTEIN 23G | SALT 3.5G