June 2008

All the content on this site by month.

Summer bento safety

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Food safety is especially important in the summer. Many charaben (cute bento) oriented Japanese bento bloggers note that they scale back the intricacy of their bento creations at this time of the year. Complicated charaben require a lot of handling of the food, which should be avoided when the weather is warm.

I have already posted a comprehensive list of bento safety tips, but here are some top summer bento safety tips.

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Bento contents:

Total calories (approx): 390 (how calories are calculated)

Type: Japanese, noodles

Two quickies with shrimp: Easy chili shrimp; shrimp,onion and furikake fritters

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Two recipes using frozen shrimp that can be made in a few minutes.

Quick tip: Cubed bento rice

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'Cut' your packed rice into cubes for function and looks!

Bento filler: Cherry tomato and leftover vegetable gratin cup

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This vegetable gratin in a cup is a great way to use up leftover vegetables in a tasty way. It only takes a few minutes to assemble too. The only thing you should have are the cherry tomatoes, which make their own sauce in a way. Otherwise you can use any cooked or frozen vegetables you have on hand. Here I've used some leftover zucchini and frozen carrot and peas. You could use the ever popular sweet pepper and onion confit too.

The 'sauce' used is mayonnaise. Cooking with mayonnaise may seem a bit odd, but it works very well. It's a very popular all-around sauce in Japanese home cooking. Cooked mayonnaise sauce tastes very nice when cold, making it very suited to bento dishes. I have used a 'light' mayonnaise here to halve the calories (50 calories per tablespoon, instead of about 100 for regular mayo), and added a little pesto from a jar to make it even tastier. I seem to always have jars of sauces spreads and pestos and so on around in the fridge - if you do too, try experimenting with them!

You do need a toaster oven to cook them up fast, but for serious bento makers this is a really handy piece of kitchen equipment to have (see essential bento making supplies).

This is a lacto-ovo-vegetarian recipe. To turn this into a vegan one use a non-egg mayonnaise substitute and omit the cheese. You can up the nutrients by adding chopped up leftover meat, more cheese, and so on.

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Bento contents:

  • 1 U.S. cup or 5oz / 140g spelt pasta, 170 cal
  • A few pieces of white flour pasta, 40 cal
  • 1/4 cup or 1.75 oz / 50g frozen tuna salad with mayonnaise, 120 cal
  • About 3/4 cup sweet pepper and onion confit with zucchini, 90 cal
  • 1/2 Tbs. olive oil, 55 cal
  • 3-4 black olives, 30 cal
  • 1 boiled egg, 80 cal
  • Lemon juice, cherry tomatoes, celery, parsley, 10 cal

Total calories (approx): 645 (how calories are calculated)

Type: Pasta salad!

Quick tip: Frozen fruit cups

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This is such a simple thing to do, and there's no better time to do it than in the summer when so many fruits are in season. Cut up any soft ripe fruit, and put them into silicon cupcake liners or wrap in plastic film. Then stash each cup or bundle in a freezer safe plastic container. You can then take out a cup or two and tuck them into your bento box. They act as an edible cooler for your bento. The container here has a cut up nectarine (divided into two silicon liners) and 2 small bananas (divided into 4).

It's the weekend, so time for some more fun links...

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Have you seen this photo? It's a Lego recreation by Mike Stimpson, aka flickr user Balakov, of a famous photograph called Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper. The original is a great classic, but I love the Lego version too. Both photos remind me how much fun opening up a lunch box after a morning of hard work can be. (You can buy a print of the Lego photo -- how cool is that? )

Bento no. 39: The basics of how to fill a classic bento box

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Bento contents, 2-tier bento (580ml capacity):

  • 1 cup (1 cup=220ml) white rice, 240 cal
  • 1 small piece salted salmon, 50 cal
  • 1-egg tamagoyaki, 100 cal
  • Approx. 1/2 cup sweet pepper and onion confit, 40 calories
  • Blanched broccoli flowerets, 10 cal
  • Blanched snow peas (mangetout) 5 cal
  • Yukari (furikake made from umeboshi and red shiso leaves)

Total calories (approx): 445 (how calories are calculated)

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Bento contents, 1-tier bento (670ml capacity):

  • 1 cup (1 cup=220ml) white rice, 240 cal
  • 2 small pieces salted salmon, 100 cal
  • 1-egg tamagoyaki, 100 cal
  • Approx. 3/4 cup sweet pepper and onion confit, 60 calories
  • Blanched broccoli flowerets, 10 cal
  • Blanched snow peas (mangetout) 5 cal
  • Yukari (furikake made from umeboshi and red shiso leaves)

Total calories (approx): 515 (how calories are calculated)

Time needed for both: 10-20 minutes in the morning (depending on your assembly speed and neatness factor)

Type: Japanese, omnivore (salmon, egg)

This is a fairly standard, classic Japanese style bento. I make this type of bento far more than any other. I've already given instructions on how to make the individual pieces, but I thought it might be useful to see step-by-step how to pack a bento box properly, with an eye to the following:

  • Presentation and attractiveness
  • Calorie content
  • Speed and ease

I've used two standard type bento boxes; a 2-tier model, and a 1-tier model with a divider.

Cheese and parsley microwave omelette

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Here's another easy egg recipe made with 1 or 2 eggs. It's made in the microwave, and the method can be used for an 'omelette' with all kinds of additives. Here I have used a little bit of leftover cheese and some parsley. It goes well in a rice based or bread based bento. Cooking egg in the microwave is mentioned in several Japanese bento books and magazine articles, from which I've adapted the following method.

1 egg tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette)

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Tamagoyaki, the slightly sweet rolled Japanese omelette, is a standby protein item for bentos. It tastes great at room temperature, is fairly easy to make (once you've done it a few times), and is cheap too. Plus the cheery yellow color brightens up any bento box.

There is one drawback with tamagoyaki: unless you have a tiny tamagoyaki pan (which is a single-purpose piece of kitchen equipment, something I try to avoid stocking in my not-so-large kitchen), you need to make it with a least 2, preferably 3 or more, eggs, to produce the distinctive multilayers of egg. This is fine if you're making bentos for two or more people, but when you're making bento for one you may not necessarily want to eat 2 eggs at a time. And tamagoyaki held in the fridge for more than a day never tastes as nice.

This method of making a 1-egg tamagoyaki in a normal small frying pan was in a recent issue of Kyou no ryouri (Today's Cooking), my favorite Japanese food magazine. I've tried it out a few times now, and I'm totally sold on it. It does make a slightly flatter tamagoyaki than a multi-egg one, but it still has those nice layers.

Here's how to make it step by step.

Making onigiri with a plastic bag

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Reader Samantha sent in a great way to make onigiri that cleverly uses the corner of a plastic bag, to make these perfectly triangular or cone-shaped rice balls.

Experimenting with frozen tuna salad, plus a tuna sushi rice sandwich

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Few things are as easy to make or as tasty for lunch than a simple tuna salad sandwich. It's one of my favorite things to make when I'm too busy or occupied for more involved cooking. But porting around tuna salad when the weather is warm can be a bit of a problem.

I've been experimenting with freezing tuna salad in different ways, or rather stages of development as it were, as well as different tuna salad mixes.

Studentenfutter: Swiss student feed mix

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Today I'm taking a break from the world of Japanese bentos to bring you something very Swiss. It's very simple, but there's beauty and logic in the simplicity.