Ingredients
Rice
580g Japanese short grain rice
580ml water
⅛ tsp Red food colouring
¼ tsp Yellow food colouring
60ml Japanese rice vinegar*
2 tbsp Sugar
½ tsp Salt
Chicken Karaage
500g Boneless chicken thigh, cubed*
1 tbsp Garlic, chopped
1 tbsp Light soy sauce
½ tsp Salt
1 tbsp Sake (optional)
A dash of pepper
1 Egg
2-3 tbsp Potato starch
200ml Oil
Garnishing
10 Crabsticks
1 small floret Broccoli, chopped
½ sheet Japanese toasted seaweed
6-8 leaves of Lettuce
4 Cherry tomatoes
2 slices Chicken ham
½ slice Soft cheese
1 slice Lemon
*Available at your nearest FairPrice store.
Method
- Prepare the Rice
- Wash and cook the rice in the following portions:
- White rice: 435g of rice, 435ml of water
- Bright orange rice: 145g of rice, 145ml of water, red and yellow food colouring
- Add rice vinegar, sugar and salt to a pot and heat just until sugar is completely dissolved. Allow to cool.
- Once the rice is cooked, add in cooled vinegar solution.
- Wash and cook the rice in the following portions:
- Prepare the Chicken Karaage
- Marinate chicken with garlic, light soy sauce, salt, sake, pepper and egg, mixing well. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 2 hours, best overnight.
- Coat chicken pieces evenly with potato starch. Heat up oil over medium-high heat. Deep fry until light golden (around 1½ minutes), flipping midway. Remove and place on wire rack to cool and drain excess oil.
- Next, prepare a second deep fry to purge excess oil and create a crispier skin. Heat up the oil over high heat. Fry for around 1 minute until the chicken turns a nice golden colour.
- Decorating
- Steam the crabstick and broccoli until soft.
- Shape the Japanese rice against the template to form Singa’s face, hands, t-shirt, and heart. Wrap some rice in cling film and compress lightly into a ball, then shape into the various elements.
- Unroll the red section of crab sticks and wrap them around the heart shaped rice ball.
- Cut the Japanese seaweed using the provided template to achieve the details for Singa’s face and the words.
- Arrange the ingredients to form the bento.