Just Bento

Bento lunches need to be assembled in the morning to taste as good as they can at lunch time. I aim to make any bento lunch in 20 minutes or less. On occasion I may go to 30 minutes, but that’s as much time as I can realistically spend. I find all of the things listed here to be very useful. None of the items need to be purchased from a bento speciality store because they are commonly used kitchen equipment!

• Two small non-stick frying pans
• One large (28cm diameter or about 11 inches) non-stick frying pan
• One or two small to mid-size saucepans

I use the small frying pans for quick frying, sautéing, and more. I use the large frying pan for boiling and steaming tasks as well as sautéing.

• An electric water kettle

How many minutes do you waste waiting for a pot of water to come to a boil? An electric water kettle does this essential task in the shortest time possible. One of the first things I do when making bento in the morning is to fill up my electric kettle and switch it on. If you are in the market for one, get the largest capacity model you can find.

• A cast iron grill pan

A grill pan is one of the best ways to quickly cook a piece of fish or meat, but it can be used for vegetables, tofu and more too. (I actually use a Le Creuset grill pan, which is enamel coated on the outside and uncoated on the inside.)

• Salad spinner

Use a salad spinner to wash all the leafy vegetables you get and try to get into the habit of washing them as soon as you get them home. If you can’t manage that, at least try to wash them the night before you need them.

• Rice cooker and/or pressure cooker

A rice cooker is the best tool for cooking white rice, but a pressure cooker is great for brown rice. It’s also great for cooking beans and other whole grains fast. You will definitely want to precook your beans and other legumes - or use canned. Dealing with a pressure cooker in the morning is a bit too much, well, pressure.

• Long chopsticks (saibashi)

Saibashi are long, uncoated chopsticks meant for cooking. Often they are attached together with a string, though I personally find the string a bit annoying and cut it off. They are great for mixing things up, stir-frying, and so on, as well as for putting food in the bento box. Regular chopsticks will do fine too, though be careful not to use the lacquired kind in hot pans.

The rest of the items should be self-explantory.

• Plastic zip bags
• Bowls and plates for laying out ingredients
• Sharp knives (a general purpose chopping knife and a small peeling knife)
• Plastic wrap (saran wrap)
• Sealable plastic containers for storing bits and pieces of food

Three tools that make some cutting tasks easier:

• Vegetable peeler
• Vegetable slicer or mandoline (I use a cheap “cassette” type from Japan, rather than my big, scary French mandoline, especially in the morning when I’m not too sharp but the mandoline blade is)
• A Microplane grater. I use this when I need to grate something because it’s dead easy to clean up. It’s the perfect tool for finely grating ginger, or zest, or something (not that I grate zest that much when I’m making bento.)
• Food processor - if you’re in the market for a new one, try to get one that has a small ‘baby food’ bowl in addition to the regular big bowl. You’ll use the small bowl a lot more for small chopping tasks.

And finally, the not really essential but handy to have (and you may already have them anyway):

• microwave oven
• toaster oven - A conventional oven takes far long to heat up, but a toaster oven is up in a jiffy.

But what about those cute bento accessories?

Essential bento making equipment to me is not about cute little egg formers or colorful plastic picks. It’s about tools that make bento assembly fast and easy. Using egg formers and the like is optional, not mandatory.

I also don’t really bother much usually with using plastic bamboo leaves and pretty pink cupcake liners and the like to separate ingredients. Instead I try to make bento lunches where the flavors don’t clash, so that it’s not a big problem if they mix a bit in the box. When that’s not possible, I use my two-compartment bento box or easy ‘dividers’ like plastic film and parchment paper. (My busy mother used to use lettuce and even cabbage leaves as edible or at least disposable dividers and liners in our bento boxes.)

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