Tag Archives: goma ae

Kindergarten bento – How many ingredients comparison (29/May, 30/May, 31/May, 1/Jun,4/Jun, 5/Jun)

20/06/2018

29/May – 11 ingredients

Simmered cod, rice, edamame, egg with corns, spinach in sesame sauce, cucumber, carrot, apple, banana

30/May – 11 ingredients

Fried chicken (with corn flower), green beans, broccoli, cherry tomato, goma konbu (sesame & kelp), rice, furikake sprinkle (counted as one), apple, strawberry

31/May – 12 ingredients

Bread (count as one), ham, cucumber, scrambled egg, cheese, Dutch appelstroop, peanut butter, blueberry jam, green beans, apple mousse, mashed potato, cinnamon

1/Jun – 10 ingredients

Chicken soboro, chopped komstsuna, rice, sesame, tomato omelet, broccoli, cucumber with bonito flakes, watermelon

4/Jun – 11 ingredients

Nikudon (pork slices, sliced cabbage, rice), broccoli, cherry tomato, tofu omelet (tofu, egg, ao-nori (seaweed) powder), cherry tomato, apple, banana

5/Jun – 11 ingredients

Tortillas (counted as one), ham, cucumber, cheese, Dutch appelstroop, strawberry jam, banana with Nutella (secret, as it’s not allowed at her school), boiled egg, broccoli, watermelon

Wow, I am quite consistent, with mostly 11 ingredients used every day.

Kindergarten bento – Leftover parade (26/Sep/17)

27/09/2017

As spoiled as a child can be, my daughter told me the other day she wouldn’t want to eat the same thing from one day to the other. Ha!

Luckily, she forgets stuff overnight, and today’s bento is filled with our dinner leftovers. The bento box came home empty.

Menu: Simmered sweet potato with chicken thigh, Spinach goma-ae, Tomato Omelet, Riceixed with wakana sprinkle & dried jako (baby sardine) with sesame on top

Tangerine Mikan for dessert

Kindergarten bento – Miss Picky (6/Mar/17)

07/03/2017

Menu: Grilled chicken marinated in soysauce & honey, Spinach goma-ae, Goma-konbu, Tofu omelet, Cherry tomato, Rice

No dessert due to time constraint😓


As is always the case, I got distracted by my daughter while preparing her bento this morning and burnt the chicken. I cut off the burnt parts as much as possible, and above is the result (not too bad I thought).

Once my daughter came home, I opened her bento box for washing, and found the empty box except for the uneaten chicken dices (all of them). I asked her why she didn’t eat them, and she told me she didn’t want to because they tasted yucky.

I cannot force her to eat what she doesn’t like, but thought she was being a little too picky. I hope she won’t exploit this attitude on food. Well, I guess I will need to try not to burn anything for a while. 

Kindergarten bento – Sunshine bento (23/Feb/17)

25/02/2017

After packing rather dull shades of food in the bento box, I was awakened by the lively yellow colour of scrambled egg. It was as if the sun started shining brightly through the gloomy overcast sky.

Menu: Hijiki mixed in rice with scrambled egg on top, Spinach goma-ae, Steamed sweet potato & cabbage

Apple mousse & kiwi for dessert

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.