Category Archives: bento

Kindergarten bento – Tofu hamburg steak (17/Jun/16)

17/06/2016

Menu: Tofu hamburg steak, potato/carrot/cucumber egg salad, broccoli and furikake on rice

Apple wedges for dessert 
Today’s main is tofu hamburg steak. Hamburg steak is a Western influenced Japanese dish which is one of the most popular dishes for children. It is based on tartar steak often eaten in a German city of Hamburg (apparently), and the mane is obviously derived from it. It is like meatloaf made of minced beef/pork (or mixed) but pan-fried instead of baked in the oven, and usually comes in oval shape. 

I made this dish the evening before for our dinner. I used the mixed beef & pork mince, put a bit of leftover tofu in the pâté for more volume and lower calories, along with chopped onion (fried until golden), beaten raw egg (to hold all the ingredients together) and salt & pepper to taste. You can’t really taste the tofu because the flavour of the meat is much stronger, but you can definitely feel it in its texture that is much lighter and airy. 

For the sauce, in the same pan as the steak, I poured in a table spoon of soysauce and maple syrup, and a bit of water (otherwise it’d become pasty) and bring to boil and thicken a bit. I’d put some herb next time, maybe chopped parsley.

Kindergarten bento – Kiriboshi daikon (9/Jun/16)

15/06/2016

Menu: Kiriboshi daikon, Cucumber/asparagus/chicken fillet salad, Pancetta & cheese omelet, and Shirasu rice (with nori seaweed laid out in between)

Apple wedges for dessert

Kiriboshi daikon. Yes, what is it? Let’s look at the formula…

Kiri（切り） = cut/sliced

Boshi（干し）  = dried

Daikon（大根） = Japanese radish.

∴  Sliced dried Japanese radish.

To my embarrassment, this was my first attempt to cook kiriboshi daikon. I like my mum’s kiriboshi daikon very much, but never had an urge to make one myself. I used to think it was one of those side dishes that attracts no particular appreciation from anyone. It is always there on your dining table, very modestly, and you never really notice it.

But recently my perception has started to change. I always try to give my daughter healthy tasty food, and suddenly remembered a wise advice from my grandmother to eat kiriboshi daikon. In fact, I think it could be one of the healthiest dishes in the Japanese kitchen… To back up my statement, I did some quick research – apparently, it contains high dietary fiber, calcium, potassium, iron, vitamin B and B2, much more than the fresh Japanese radish because it is dried in the sun: kiriboshi daikon contains 15 times more calcium, 32 times more iron, 10 times more vitamin B and B2 than regular daikon. So, there you go. Very nutritious. If I don’t cook, our daughter will not learn how it tastes like and never get an amazing set of nutrients this dish can provide. That is why I decided to go for it.

Now, this is how it looks like. Bought this pack at a local supermarket. Even if it may look a lot, it lasts quite a while since it is dried, so you can use it little by little.

We usually cook it after soaking it in water for a while, just like the way you cook sun dried tomatoes or porcini in Italian cuisine.

This is how it looks like after half an hour so. This should be enough soaking. Take it out of water and squeeze that water out, but leave the water in the bowl for later.

Pour in a dash of vegetable oil, and quickly stir fry it. 

Once it’s heated, pour in the water you soaked kiriboshi daikon with (just the amount that covers the top of kiriboshi daikon, like shown below). Cook until it gets softer (nicely crunchy, rather than just hard and chewy), for 10 minutes or so. Add the soaking water if it dries up. 

Add some sliced carrots and cook further until the carrots are soft, for another 7 minutes or so. Here also, add the soaking water a bit if it dries up.

Once soft, for this amount shown in the image, add a tea spoon of sake, 2 tea spoons of soysauce, and 1+ spoon of sugar to taste.

I forgot to buy it this time but you can also add thinly sliced “abura a-ge (油揚げ)“, deep fried sheets of tofu, after you add the carrots.

Kindergarten bento – Spinach goma-ae (14/Jun/16)

14/06/2016

Menu: Spinach goma-ae, simmered beef (dinner leftover), Okura/tofu/bonito flake salad, Boiled egg, Steamed broccoli

Kiwi fruits for dessert

 

Goma-ae is the type of side dish we eat frequently in Japan. “Goma” means sesame, and “ae” comes from a verb “ae-ru” which means to mix or to toss.  

The sesame marinade is very easy to prepare. Use 2 table spoonful of sesame seeds (usually you can buy roasted sesame seeds called “irigoma/炒りごま” in any supermarket here), grind them in a spice grinder to make sesame powder (or you can simply use pre-ground sesame called “surigoma/すりごま”), mix in a table spoon of soy sauce and a table spoon of sugar. Stir the three ingredients well, and the marinade is ready. This should be more than enough for a pack of spinach.

I usually boil spinach in boiling water (put the roots first for 10 seconds, push in the leaves afterwards and cook for a minute or so). Take the spinach out, place it under cold running water so that the boiled spinach maintains this beautiful bright green colour, and once cooled down, drain well by squeezing the water out of the spinach. Line them on a cutting board, cut into 4cm apart or so.

Then, in a bowl pour the marinade onto the spinach, toss everything quickly and coat the marinade evenly. That’s it!

You can also use green beans (15-20 of them depending on the size), or any other vegetable you like. When the portion of the vegetable is bigger, prepare more marinade, but just stick with the proportion: 2 ground sesame, 1 soysauce, 1 sugar. You can of course adjust this a bit to your liking.

Kindergarten bento – Corn omelet (13/Jun/16)

13/06/2016

Menu: Corn omelet, Grilled sawara (Spanish mackerel) with saikyo-miso, Steamed pumpkin, Cherry tomato/Avocado/Spinach salad, wakana rice

Japanese cherries for dessert

Corns are in season. Today, I added steamed corns in an omelet (corn pieces sliced off of the core). The crunchiness and sweetness of the corns go very well with the mild taste of the egg – one of those very kids-friendly menus I’m sure.

Usually it takes 7-8 minutes to steam a large corn (with one or two layers of the skin still attached). When in a hurry, I also use microwave – in this case rinse a corn (again with the skin), wrap it around in a plastic wrap, and heat it up in 700W microwave for  3 – 4 minutes.

Kindergarten bento – pork roll (10/Jun/16)

10/06/2016

Menu: pork roll with sliced carrots and scallion (negi), boiled potato & spinach salad, edamame, goma-shio (black sesame & salt) & yukari (seasoned Japanese shiso herb) on rice

Grapes for dessert

 

Today’s main course, pork roll, is called “niku (meat) maki (roll)” in Japanese. 

Very simple: prepare pork slices (sliced like carpaccio meat), thinly sliced carrots and scallion (negi) or any other sliced vegetable of your choice. Roll the veggies with a pork slice, and fry it in a frying pan. 
  
You can use olive oil to fry, pour white wine once the meat is golden brown for extra flavour, put the lid on, and once the meat is cooked add salt & pepper to taste. 

Alternatively, replace olive oil with vegetable oil, and white wine with sake. Once the meat is cooked add 1 tea spoon of soysauce and 2 tea spoons of mirin and toss the rolls to mix with the sauce.

Once cooked, cut the rolls in half for beautiful presentation.

Kindergarten bento – goma konbu & tarako (6/Jun/16)

07/06/2016

Menu: goma konbu (marinated kelp with sesame) on rice, tarako (salted roe of Alaskan pollock) in between two layers of rice, chicken tofu pâtés, green beans with sesame sauce, pumpkin egg salad, broccoli and cherry tomato

Japanese cherries for dessert  

2 new ingredients for our little girl’s kindergarten bento today; goma konbu (marinated kelp with sesame) and tarako (salted roe of Alaskan pollock).

goma konbu is marinated kelp (konbu) with sesame (goma) seeds, usually seasoned with soysauce based marinade. It tastes salty but sweet, kind of similar to teriyaki. I didn’t cook it, actually have never made one before, as it can be easily found in any supermarket. It is one of the most common ingredients for packed lunches in Japan, which always comes with rice. Similar to furikake, in Japan we say it is a “friendly  match” with plain, unseasoned rice. The reaction from our daughter for this attempt? Two thumbs up!

The other new ingredient I put in our daughter’s kindergarten lunch for the first time is so-called tarako, salted pinkish roe of Alaskan  pollock. The name “tarako” comes from the fish’s Japanese name, “suketou tara“, and “ko“, meaning children. It’s super fishy and salty but incredibly tasty, kind of the way Italian bottarga or caviar is. Tarako is however amazingly accessible compared to those western delicacy, and is eaten at any Japanese household on a regular basis. Its saltiness goes very well with rice, and is a popular ingredient for onigiri. For the bento I sneaked tarako in between two layers of rice, thinking it’d be too fishy if its exposed. According to our girl’s class teacher, Miss N, our daughter hurriedly closed her bento box lid when Miss N. walked past that day, but when she was asked she reluctantly admitted she couldn’t finish the rice because of the “pink thingy” in the rice. When I picked her up afterwards she very politely asked me to not put the pink thingy in the bento anymore… because it was yucky…. Hmmmm….ok… I’ll try sneaking it in some other time. It is an acquired taste, and I believe it’ll take a while for her to get used to this…