Okay so I do realise that yakitori belongs on a skewer but stop ruining my fun and love of food in a bowl. This has all the flavours of yakitori marinade but you don’t need to put the meat on a skewer or have a grill/open flame to cook it on. So it’s yakitori, but less effort.

And that slaw! Look at it, it’s so colourful and pretty and it tastes amazing. Yes it has kewpie mayo in it, because kewpie mayo is life. It doesn’t have that much because a little goes a long way when it comes to mayo (in my opinion, I have a mayo obsessed friend that would disagree (strongly). But if you really don’t want to eat mayo you could just dress it with a little mirin and lime juice and all would be fine. Just don’t scrimp on the sesame seeds.

I like to serve this on a mix of quinoa and brown rice but you could really just go with one or the other if you’d like to simplify things. I just think they have a nice flavour and texture when mixed together. Plus quinoa is full of protein which is always a win.

You can marinate this chicken overnight or just 20 minutes before cooking. If you do the marinade first, by the time your rice/quinoa is cooked and the slaw is made you’ll be ready to give that chicken a quick stir-fry. Easy.

There’s two other important things you should notice about this dish. 1. It’s my second recipe involving cabbage this week, because even cabbage just seems to keep going forever and I hate to waste (if you have cabbage leftover make okonomiyaki!). 2. My chopsticks are broken in all of the photos. I have no explanation for you…

Serves 4

Ingredients

500g chicken breast

1/4 cup tamari or soy

1/4 cup mirin

1/4 cup sake

1/4 cup water

2 tsp maple syrup, coconut sugar or honey

1 clove garlic

2 tsp freshly grated ginger

Slaw

3 cups green cabbage, finely sliced

1 carrot, grated

1 cup julienned snowpeas

1/3 cup spring onion, finely sliced

1 Tbs rice wine vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

few drops sesame oil

1.5 cups finely sliced red cabbage

2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 shredded mint leaves

4 radish, julienned

1/3 cup podded edamame

2 Tbs toasted sesame seeds

2 Tbs kewpie mayo

lime, to serve

3 cups cooked brown rice or quinoa, to serve

Directions

Cut chicken into bite sized chunks and place in a bowl with the tamari, mirin, sake, water, maple syrup, garlic and ginger. Stir well to coat the chicken and leave to marinate for at least 20 minutes (overnight is fine too).

Meanwhile, combine green cabbage, carrot, snow peas and spring onion in a bowl and add the rice wine vinegar, salt and sesame oil. toss and set aside.

In a separate bowl dress the sliced red cabbage with the remaining rice wine vinegar and salt. Toss and set aside.

Heat a large fry pan on high heat and spray with light olive oil or rice bran oil. Add chicken, being careful not to crowd the pan. Reserve excess marinade. After a minute or so shake the pan and add a little more marinade to coat the chicken again. Keep repeating this until the chicken is glossy and caramelised and you have no marinade left. Move the chicken around the pan frequently during this process. You want the chicken to be a little crispy and sticky. You can take one piece out to check it is cooked through. Once cooked, take it off the heat and stir through 1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds.

To serve, combine green cabbage and vegetables with the edamame, toasted sesame, radish, mint and kewpie mayo and toss to combine, ensuring the kewpie is evenly coating the slaw.

Pile some brown rice, chicken on slaw on each plate and dig in.

HH. x