We ate soboro chicken last night – the closest thing to comfort food in my world and Japanese to the core. Chicken and egg with flavorings of shoyu and dashi and sesame oil, some mirin, garnished with a piece of nori. The added bonus is that it’s incredibly fast to make, so we were able to sit down to a family meal. John John has been really excelling at his use of the fork, so this may have been his first experience eating soboro with one bite having many flavors combined: chicken, egg, peas, seaweed.
“I’m so glad John John can grow up in a world that knows seaweed,” I sighed.
And immediately realized how empty that sounded. But seriously, growing up in Newhall, CA, I’ll always remember when ‘sushi’ was a disgusting foreign dish with raw fish – if anyone knew what it was at all – and I was teased for the rice balls with seaweed in my lunch box: “Seaweed? Ewwww!! Gross!!” That’s when I felt the need for lunchables, but back to this post.
“Can I have hot sauce?” asked John. I looked at him askance. “Is that wrong?” he said. I gave him some, because who is to say what is right and wrong with all of the mixing of flavors in the world. If there can be Korean Tacos, John can eat hot sauce on soboro. “It’s good,” he attested. I’m too set in my ways when it comes to this comfort food, so passed on using the condiment as much as I do love it. But John John pointed to the mostly empty dish of hot sauce. “Mo,” he said, and signed “please.” I put some on a piece of chicken and he ate it.
“Yum,” he said. “Mo!”
“Can you say, ‘please’?” I asked.
“Pess,” he replied.
He ate the rest of his meal with hot sauce.