Back to Bento

After a (long) break, I'm trying to get back to making bento - just a simple one, made with one of my favourite bento staples - Beef and Tofu meatballs (you can't taste the tofu at all, but adding tofu makes the meatballs juicy, even after it has been frozen and re-fried). Here, they have been glazed with homemade teriyaki sauce. The rest of the bento is just some edamame, a happy hard boiiled egg, and rice. Simple, but filling and tasty.

Teriyaki sauce
4 Tbsp soya sauce
3 Tbsp sake
3 Tbsp mirin
2 Tbsp sugar

Mix all the ingredients together in a small frying pan, and heat over medium heat until bubbling. Keep the sauce bubbling (adjusting the heat lower if necessary) until the liquid reduces and thickens. Add the meatballs and coat with the sauce. (If you are defrosting the meatballs, make sure you fry them until the meatballs are fully heated through.)




Paprika Chicken & Avocado Sandwich

This is one of my favourite sandwiches. It's great in a bento lunch, easy to make, and healthy, too. The chicken tenderloin is marinated with a little soya sauce and paprika, then grilled. I use my George Foreman grill for this, but you can also panfry it if you prefer. The meat is then shredded, and added to a multi grain nut bread, along with slices of avocado and tomato. I find the nuttiness of the bread matches very well with the buttery avocado and paprika chicken. There is no need to butter the bread as the avocado already provides the sandwich with a moist buttery taste.

Accompany the sandwich with some raw carrot sticks and hummus dip.

Tip: When packing sandwiches in your bento lunch, a handy way to keep the sandwich together and your hands clean when eating it is to wrap the sandwich with baking paper/parchment paper. Then cut the wrapped sandwich in half, paper and all, with a sharp knife (a serrated bread knife works well). 




Noodle & Dumpling Bento

I find I'm always short on groceries (and time) Sunday night, so making bento for Monday usually involves rummaging around in the freezer. Today's lunch for YH is a simple combination of thin udon noodles mixed with sesame oil, soya sauce and oyster sauce, dumplings (from the freezer) and some baby spinach (wilted slightly with a little sesame oil and sesame seeds). A little red container of chilli sauce brightens up both the bento and the taste of the noodles. 

The best part about this lunch is that everything can be cooked in one small saucepan, which saves time and washing up. The water for boiling the frozen dumplings can also be used to cook the noodles, and the cooked noodles can be mixed with the sauces in the pot. Later, the spinach can be wilted slightly in the same saucepan as well. 




Sausage n Egg Bento

Today's bento reminds me of breakfast sets often served in Japan - sausage, egg, salad and rice. I lightly panfried the onion flavoured sausages, and made a giant tamagoyaki layered with leftover beef soboro. Accompanying that was some butter lettuce and cherry tomatoes. I topped the salad with some leftover boiled prawns from last night's dinner (which didn't quite fit with the breakfast theme.). 




Beef & Egg Soboro Bento

After a short trip away, it's back to bento for me this week. I was preparing this late Sunday night so I kept things simple and made some beef and egg soboro. Together with some peas and rice, it was quick and easy to prepare. As I find the beef soboro is already quite salty, I did not season the egg, so it is actually just plain, finely scrambled egg. (Normally, you would usually season the egg with a little soya sauce, mirrin, sugar and salt.)




Bento in Osaka

We just returned from a short trip to Osaka to catch the tail end of the sakura season. As expected, most of the flowers had already fallen there, so we headed out of the city to Yoshino, where over 10,000 sakura trees grow wild on the mountain. To my delight, there were still quite a few sakura blooming, especially in the higher regions of the mountain.

On the train journey to Yoshino, we enjoyed a lovely 3-tiered bento lunch that we purchased in the food section of Kintetsu Department Store. I was quite inspired by the first tier, and will try it out one day - it contained sushi rice, topped with shredded egg, slices of mushroom, a few peas, bamboo shoots and a prawn. The other two tiers contained a lovely assortment of pickles, savoury tamagoyaki, small fried fish, bamboo shoots, fish balls, lotus root and a sweet konnyaku jelly. It was really delicious, and very exciting to be eating a bento on a train in Japan!




Owl Bento

I've taken a long break from making kyaraben (character) bento. I've just not been all that inspired, I suppose. It's been a blob of pasta, or leftovers with rice for poor YH for a few months! As my parents are visiting us right now, I thought I'd make the effort and make a special bento for them, especially since my mum has been hinting about how she'd love to eat one. My mother loves owls, so I thought an owl bento would be appropriate. To be honest, it was not one of my best efforts. But it was easy to put together...

The owl is made out of rice, with carrots for eyes, and brown mushrooms for its beak, wings and feathers. Surrounding the owl is a forest of broccoli, fried green capsicum, beef soboro, tamagoyaki (rolled egg omelette), corn and a little tofu moon and tamagoyaki star. The colours were a little dull (I guess it's nighttime) but my mum was pleased with it, and I guess that's all that matters.




Another Bento delivery...

Yesterday, I popped over to my friend's place and delivered a soba salad bento lunch. It was a last minute decision, so I didn't have much time to prepare, which meant I arrived at around 2pm - my trick is to make the person I'm feeding so hungry that whatever I dish out is tasty. HA. 

Soba noodle salads are quick to make and relatively healthy. I mixed the noodles with a little sesame oil and soba sauce, sliced cucumbers, sugar snap peas, shredded egg omelette and served it with some hot smoked salmon. Kiwi fruit and blackberries were added for fruit content and colour, and overall I felt quite pleased with the amount of fruit and veggie in the dish. That's one of my new year's decision, by the way, to eat more fruit and veg...




Tuna Spaghetti Aglio e Olio Bento

I stopped making bento over the holiday period, and am slowly getting back to it. Today's bento lunch is a leftover from last night's dinner - Tuna Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. I made a slight variation to the recipe by adding a squirt of tomato paste to it (around 1 Tbsp) - when you mix it through, you can't really taste the tomato, you just get a bit of added flavour coating the spaghetti. I also substituted the rocket leaves for baby spinach leaves. 

Also in the bento are some kiwi fruit, half a nashi pear and the odd frozen raspberry (for colour). This year I'm really going to try adding more fruit and vegetables to my diet...

This pasta should really be eaten warm, so I packed it in my microwavable container. The fruits are sitting in little plastic sections that can easily be lifted up before heating the pasta. I then sprinkled a few drops of water over the pasta before microwaving it.




Rudolph Bento

The Christmas season crept up on me this year and took me completely by surprise. (Yes, decorations have been displayed everywhere for ages, but as they've been up since November, I really lost track.) It finally dawned upon me that if I didn't get my act together it would be next year... so I dug through my bento stash and leftover rice to make this simple Christmas-themed bento.

It's Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, who, by the way, I feel very sorry for. I also object to the song about him - he was laughed at because he looked different, and then he became popular just because he was useful?? Anyway(!), Rudolph's head and legs are made out of mushroom and soya sauce fried rice, and his antlers and body are made out of teriyaki chicken meatballs. He has a cherry tomato nose, and surrounding (and underneath) him is a simple display of grapes and cherries, and some sugarsnap peas. 

Continue reading for a Step-by-step guide on how to make this Rudolph Reindeer Bento...

Step-by-Step Guide: How To Make a Rudolph Reindeer Bento

Ingredients:

• 5 heaped Tbsp cold, cooked rice
  
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
  
• sesame oil
  
• soya sauce (light and thick, dark soya sauce)
  
• 2 shitake mushrooms, chopped
  
• 3 teriyaki chicken meatballs (made fresh, or from your freezer stash)
  
• 1 cherry tomato
  
• 2 black peppercorns
  
• small squeeze of mayonnaise
  

For the rest of the bento (if you wish to follow the bento pictured) or feel free to substitute with other vegetables, fruit, etc.

• handful sugarsnap peas (boiled)
  
• small bunch seedless green grapes
  
• 5 - 7 cherries
  

Equipment:

• Small paring knife
  
• Small non-stick frying pan (to fry the rice) and small saucepan (to boil the sugarsnap peas)
  
• 1 bento box (I used a single tier, 630ml capacity container).
  

Step 1 - Make the Fried Rice

In a small frying pan, add a few drops of sesame oil, and fry the chopped garlic until fragrant. Add the mushrooms, rice, a splash of light soya sauce, and some thick, dark soya sauce. Stir and fry together until the rice grains are well coated with the soya sauce. Set aside to cool.

Step 2 - Make Rudolph's Head

Place a square sheet of strong plastic wrap on your open palm, and scoop 3 Tbsp of warm fried rice onto the plastic.

Close your fingers around the rice, which will enclose the rice in the plastic. Twist the plastic at the top and compress the rice ball. Shape one end of the ball so it is slightly pointed in shape. Unwrap the rice and place it in the bento box.

Step 3 - Make Rudolph's Legs

For each leg: Repeat Steps 2 and 3 using 1 Tbsp of rice and squeeze the rice ball to form a long sausage shape. Unwrap and place into the bento box.

Step 4 - Make Rudolph's Antlers

Take 2 meatballs, and cut a small semi-circle from the bottom of each one with a small paring knife. Set aside the semi-circles.


Cut out two small triangles from each of the remaining meatballs (as pictured) to form the antlers.


Place some sugarsnap peas into the bento box around Rudolph's head, and then place the antler meatballs above the head. Shift the legs down.

Step 5 - Rudolph's Body

Cut a small semi-circle out of the 3rd meatball, and place it in-between the head and the legs to form Rudolph's body.

Step 6 - Rudolph's Face & Hooves

Slice a cherry tomato into two, and place the bottom part on his face to form the nose.

Squeeze a small amount of mayonnaise onto a dish, and use a chopstick/skewer to dab two small circles of mayonnaise above the nose to form eyes. Stick the black peppercorns onto the mayonnaise eyes to form pupils.

Slice bits of the remaining meatballs into small squares and place them on Rudolph's legs to form hooves.

Step 7 - Filling up the rest of the bento box

Finish off the bento by placing cherries, grapes and some extra sugarsnap peas around Rudolph. I chose these for their red and green Christmas colours, but substitute with other fruits/vegetables if you wish.

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Bacon & Asparagus Roll Bento

Today's bento contains my favourite Bacon & Asparagus Rolls, hard-boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, stir-fried mushrooms, rice and some pickled cabbage in the little heart container.




Monokuro Boo Bento

I have taken a short break from kyaraben (character bento) recently as they do take some time to make, and I have not been feeling too inspired. However, when I read that the topic for this week's bento challenge over at the Live Journal Bento Challenge community was "twins", I suddenly wanted to make a Monokuro Boo Bento. I love these monochrome square-shaped pigs by San-X, and to fit the Bento Challenge theme, I have decided the pigs are fraternal twins...

My Monokuro Boo pigs are rice onigiri filled with salmon flakes. One is wrapped, and the other isn't (to form one black and one white pig). They are sitting in a colourful garden of carrot, cheese and egg flowers, edamame, broccoli and cherry tomatoes, and some ham and egg rolls.

Monokuro Boo is quite easy to make, as it is basically a square-shaped onigiri. The hardest part is to cut out the little eye and nose details. It helps if you have cutters, but if not, you can make do with a small, sharp pair of scissors and a little patience. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to make this bento.  Step-by-Step Pictorial Guide: How To Make A Monokuro Boo Bento...

Step-by-Step Guide: How To Make a Monokuro Boo Bento

Ingredients:
(For 2 Monokuro Boo Pigs)

• 6 heaped Tbsp cooked short-grain rice
  
• Filling for the onigiri (I used salmon flakes, but you can use whatever filling you wish)
  
• 1 triangular sheet of nori seaweed
  
• + extra piece nori
  
• 1 slice processed cheese
  

For the rest of the bento (if you wish to follow the bento pictured) or feel free to substitute with other vegetables, meat, etc.

• 1/4 carrot
  
• 1 large egg
  
• 2 slices ham
  
• edamame
  
• broccoli
  
• 2 cherry tomatoes
  

Equipment:

• Small paring knife
  
• Scissors (preferably small ones)
  
• Small circle cutter or a straw
  
• Flower-shaped cutter (ordinary cookie cutters are fine), or any shaped-cutter you prefer eg. stars, hearts, etc.
  
• Small frying pan (to fry the egg) and small saucepan (to cook the broccoli)
  

• 1 bento box (I used a single tier, 630ml capacity container, but you can use other sizes - the amount of food you fit around the pigs will just increase/decrease according to what size box you use.)
  

Step 1 - Making the Onigiri (Rice Balls)

Start by making 2 rice onigiri. If your rice is cold, sprinkle a few drops of water over the rice and warm it up in the microwave. Tear a square-shaped piece of strong plastic wrap and place it on the palm of your hand. Scoop 2 heaped Tbsp of warm rice onto the plastic wrap in your palm.

Step 2 - Filling the Onigiri

To make an onigiri with filling, add your filling on top of the rice. Here, I have added a few tsps of salmon flakes. Other fillings you can use - teriyaki chicken bits, canned tuna with mayo, minced beef soboro, etc.

If you just want to make a plain rice onigiri without any filling, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3 - Completing the Onigiri

Add 1 heaped Tbsp of rice on top of the filling to cover it. (For a plain onigiri, just add 1 Tbsp of rice. You can also sprinkle a little salt on the rice for flavour.)

Gather up the sides of the plastic wrap by closing your fingers inwards (as if you were gripping a tennis ball in your palm). Twist the plastic wrap together at the top. You should now have a ball of rice.

Step 4 - Shaping the Onigiri

Compress the rice together and shape the onigiri as you desire. As we are making Monokuro Boo, press the rice ball to form a flat square shape, and squeeze out two ears and two feet at each end of the square. Set aside the shaped onigiri in the plastic wrap, and repeat Steps 1 - 4 for the second pig.

Step 5 - Making the Black Pig
(You should now have two pig-shaped onigiri wrapped in plastic.)

To make the black coloured pig, take one of the onigiri and warm it up in the microwave for 10 seconds. You need the rice to be warm so the nori wraps around it easily.

Place a triangular piece of nori (seaweed) on a flat surface. (You can buy triangular-shaped nori, or just cut a big square of nori into half diagonally to form a triangle.) Unwrap the warm onigiri and place it on the nori seaweed.

Wrap the nori around the onigiri by tucking the top down (the ears will form quite naturally) and wrap the sides around the square. The back should look something like this -

...and the front should look something like this -

Tuck and squeeze the nori a little to form the legs.

Place the wrapped nori pig and the white rice pig into a bento box. Set aside as you prepare their faces.

Step 6 - Making the Eyes and Noses


Eyes

Black Pig: Take a slice of processed cheese and cut out 2 little circles using a straw or a little round cutter.

White Pig: With a small piece of nori, cut out 2 little circles using a nori face punch, or a small pair of scissors.

Nose

Black Pig: With a sharp paring knife, cut out an oval-shaped piece of cheese for the nose. Estimate the size of the nose according to the size of your onigiri pig. Tip: If you are unsure of how big it should be, cut out a larger oval, and slowly trim the ends until it is the right size.

White Pig: With a small pair of scissors, cut an oval out of nori. Try to make it the same size as the cheese oval you just made.

Nostrils

Black & White Pig: Cut out 4 small oval shapes out of nori, using a pair of scissors. The nostrils should be slightly smaller than the eyes.

If you used a nori face punch to cut out the eyes, cut out 4 more small circles, then convert them into oval shapes with the scissors. (This is what I did, therefore the nostrils in the above picture are round as I had not shaped them yet. See the picture below for the shaped nostrils)

Step 7 - Adding the Faces

Black Pig: Place the cheese eyes, cheese nose, and nori nostrils onto the black pig.

White Pig: Place the nori nose lightly onto the white pig, then quickly lift it off before it sticks. The nori should now be soft, but not soggy. Fold the nose slightly and make a small cut in the centre with a pair of scissors. Then unfold and cut around the inside of the oval to make an oval ring as pictured. Place the nose on the white pig, as well as the nori nostrils and eyes.

Your Monokuro Boo pigs are now complete!

Step 8 - Packing the Rest of the Bento
Now surround the pigs with colourful vegetables, meat, eggs, etc. of your choice.

Here is what I added:

• steamed broccoli;
  
• carrots (shaped into flowers using a flower cookie cutter. You can also shape them into stars, hearts, etc.);
  
• cherry tomatoes;
  
• edamame;
  
• ham and egg rolls (Edit: Link added for the ham n egg rolls);
  
• egg (fried thinly, then cut into flower shapes);
  
• processed cheese (cut into flowers - a good way to use up the remainder of the cheese slice).
  

How I packed the bento:

I began by selecting the "harder", more bulky items. In this case, it was the broccoli, which I added around the sides of the bento box.

This was followed by the cherry tomatoes and the ham and egg rolls.

Next, half of the carrots and the edamame were added to fill in the gaps. The remaining carrots were placed on top to create a flower scene, and the egg and cheese flowers were added for further colour and design. The completed bento:

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Rice n Egg Cubes Bento

I've been lazy this week and took a short break from making bento (which meant sending YH off without lunch twice - luckily he had lunch appointments on the other days). 

I finally got my act together this morning, with yet another salted salmon bento. I've been buying a lot of fish lately, so the bento have also all been rather fishy. Today's bento contains pan-fried salted salmon, stir-fried sweet peppers/capsicum, edamame, tamagoyaki and rice cubes. The rice cubes are topped with some baby sardines and black sesame seeds.




Bento Delivery

Today I visited a friend and made a bento for her. She's a fan of Precious Moments, so I got her a (very pink) Precious Moments bento box as a present. Instead of keeping the box though, she asked me to return with it another day, with another bento lunch! 

The bento contains asparagus wrapped with bacon, pan-fried yellowtail fish, cherry tomatoes, stir-fried beansprouts and mushrooms, and tamagoyaki.




Tarako Onigiri Bento

Was in a rush today so I ended up making a simple lunch - tarako onigiri and an apple. It was back to the collapsible bento boxes, as well, as I was out all afternoon and didn't want to lug bulky bento boxes around with me. 

As my tarako (salted cod roe) had been sitting in the fridge for a while, I pan-fried it, cut it into chunks, and used it as an onigiri filling, along with a little kewpie mayonnaise. Delicious! I was also thrilled to use my plastic disposable onigiri wrappers which separate the nori seaweed sheet from the rice onigiri - just like the ones you buy at Japanese convenience stores! YH thought I'd bought the onigiri, so I guess it looked "professional" enough :)




Salted Salmon Bento

Today's bento was a little more Japanese - with pan-fried salted salmon, tamagoyaki, mushrooms, edamame and teriyaki chicken meatballs. I was happily packing the 1st tier, but when it came to the 2nd tier, after I'd shaped the rice into star shapes, I had nothing much else to place in it except some edamame! Hence the slightly odd star-shaped rice towers hovering on their own. This was just bad planning/design on my part!




Spicy Chicken & Cabbage Salad Bento

I had leftover roast chicken and cabbage sitting in the fridge, so I decided to make a Vietnamese/Thai-style chicken and cabbage salad for today's bento. A good thing about salads like this is that it is relatively healthy, as it doesn't include fattening/creamy salad dressing. Yet another good point about this bento is that it can all be prepared the night before.

Accompanying the bento are two little apples from Japan that I found in the local supermarket. The packet of apples were labelled, "Hime Ringo" (Princess Apple) which I thought was quite sweet. They were literally sweet as well, although a little mushy. There's also a little container of crushed peanuts to pour over the salad just before eating.

Continue reading for the Spicy Chicken & Cabbage Salad...

Spicy Chicken & Cabbage Salad
(serves 2)

1/4 roast chicken, teased into strips (or any leftover grilled chicken/boiled chicken you have on hand)
2 cups cabbage, finely shredded
1 medium carrot, shredded
1 small bundle glass noodles (optional - I added this to make the salad a little more filling)
few drops sesame oil (optional)
2 Tbsp fish sauce
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
1 red chilli, finely chopped (or few drops chilli oil, if you don't have fresh chilli on hand)
red pepper flakes & sliced green chilli (optional, for garnish)

1. If you are using glass noodles, add the noodles into boiled water. Stir and leave to soak until the noodles are soft. Drain, then mix a few drops of sesame oil into the noodles. With a pair of scissors, cut the noodles roughly into smaller pieces.
   
2. Add the chicken, shredded cabbage and carrot with the noodles and combine well.
   
3. Mix the fish sauce, lemon juice, sugar and chilli together, then pour into the salad and toss.
   
4. Taste, and add more seasoning if necessary.
   
5. Garnish with some red pepper flakes or thinly sliced green chilli.
   

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Tonkatsu Pork Bento

I don't know why but I have a thing for cute green frogs - but only cartoon ones, mind you. I don't like real frogs at all. So I was happy to use my smiling frog bento box today - one of my recent acquisitions from Hokkaido. The colours of the food sadly matched the rather pale green of the box, though! 

The first tier contains rice with furikake, and zucchini stir-fried with sesame oil and soya sauce in a little flower container to brighten it up. If your food is a little pale or dull in colour, it can help to use such accessories to brighten things up. The second tier contains pork tonkatsu slices on a bed of shredded cabbage, and some baby corn. The little container has some spicy tomato sauce to dip with the tonkatsu and there's another container (not pictured) that has some sesame salad dressing for the cabbage. 

I used my tonkatsu recipe for the pork, but this time I cut the pork into slices first, before breading and frying it.




Wrapped Up Over the Weekend

I had a lot of soft flour tortillas as well lamb and grilled chicken leftover in the fridge, so I used them to make more wraps for an impromptu picnic on Sunday. Inside the wraps are lamb/chicken, with homemade spicy tomato sauce, roasted red and yellow peppers, tahini, and baby spinach leaves. I was in a hurry and using my rather large collapsible bento boxes from Muji, so I ended up sticking a whole apple into the bento. It's fun to slice fruit up into little bits for bento, but sometimes it is also nice to just bite into a whole, juicy apple... 

We headed up to Pinewood Battery again, and played some frisbee in the park, before setting out our picnic mat to eat lunch. After lunch, we snacked on senbei crackers, listened to some music from YH's phone, and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. The weather is starting to turn cold here, so the bright sun on our backs was actually welcome (for a change).




Lamb Wrap Bento

Although bento is a great way of using up any leftover food you may have, sometimes I will purposely cook a little extra when preparing dinner and set it aside for lunch the next day. It saves time, and is energy efficient, too. Last night, I made grilled lamb with speedy roast potatoes and broccoli. I set aside some lamb, potato and broccoli, and made today's bento with it. If you have a compulsion to finish up everything in front of you (as I do), remember to set aside some food before serving it for dinner. All too often I prepare more, thinking I will keep the leftovers, but I make the mistake of serving everything at the table and finishing it all up!

Anyway, back to today's bento... I sliced up the leftover lamb and made some wraps filled with lamb, tahini, spicy tomato sauce and rocket leaves (rolled up in a flour tortilla). Accompanying the lamb wraps are some red and yellow peppers/capsicum I roasted, as well as the leftover potatoes, broccoli, and some blackberries. In another small container (not pictured) I also packed some raw carrot sticks and a container of hummus).