Welcome to the first episode of Harriet Sugarcookie’s new YouTube series, Cute Food. Each week Harriet will be showing you how to make a super fast and easy lunchbox you can take to work or school. She will always try to make sure the recipes are fresh and healthy and what’s more, she will show you how to make each recipe in a cute way that will impress your girlfriend, colleagues or classmates.

So let’s get started with our first dish, a Bomberman themed chicken teriyaki lunchbox. Chicken teriyaki is a classic Japanese dish that’s incredibly tasty and one of the easiest meals to make that tastes good hot or cold making it perfect for people with busy lives or even just lazy people.

I’m going to assume that everyone knows how to make rice. I recommend using Japanese sticky rice as it’s delicious and goes so well with the teriyaki sauce.

I pimped my chicken teriyaki to make it look like bomberman with ham, cheese, seaweed and fish eggs. You really don’t need this step so I will get straight to the chicken teriyaki recipe. But it’s great if you want to impress someone. Imagine your girlfriend’s delight in finding this in her packed lunch when she opens it!

Ingredients

  • 2 Table spoons of mirin
  • 2 Table spoons of soy sauce
  • 1 table spoon of sugar
  • 2 chicken thighs
  • Salt + pepper to taste

Cooking instructions

  1. First we need to prepare our chicken thighs. Cut them into bite sized pieces, although I cut mine into two-bites sized pieces technically…
  2. Pierce the skin of the chicken thighs. This will help it cook, and reduce chance of fat explosions in the frying pan.
  3. Season the thighs with salt and pepper to taste. Since there is a lot of salt in soy sauce, it’s ok to skip the salt and just season with pepper.
  4. On a medium to high heat, place the chicken thighs skin side down. Cook until golden brown, then flip them over. Steam fry the chicken by placing a lid over the top inside the frying pan.
    For the teriyaki sauce, combine the Mirin, Soy sauce and sugar. Mirin is very sweet, so feel free to use less sugar to taste. I’ve also met cooks who use a 1:1:1 ratio and they like their teriyaki sauce to be extra sweet.
  5. Using a paper towel, soak up the excess fat in the frying pan and throw it away.
    Pour in the teriyaki sauce mixture.
  6. Continuously baste you chicken in the sauce, until the sauce thickens up and turns into a beautiful glaze.
  7. Wait till chicken has cooled off before putting it into a Tupperware box with a lid. Chicken teriyaki will last 1 week in a tightly closed tupperware box in the fridge, and up to a month inside the freezer.