La petite biscotte

Exams are finally over!! I can’t believe that I’m still alive :p I have shadows under the eyes the size of apples, my stove hasn’t been used in two weeks and my cat is deliberately ignoring me because he didn’t get any attention for some time now… But the first thing I did when everything was over was shopping fresh ingredients and making a nice bento which I had for lunch. What a treat after a fortnight of processed foods and salad

Contents of this bento:

• Red bean rice with sesame seeds
• Tamagoyaki
• Snowpeas
• Teriyaki fried Salmon

Verdict:

The bento was quite nice, I enjoyed the red bean rice the most, however next time I’ll have to be more careful with the amount of liquid I put into the rice cooker. With the cooking liquid from the red beans and the soy sauce there was slightly too much, so the rice was a tad on the mushy side (which I hate but my husband likes so that was ok).

Nothing special about the salmon beside that I didn’t like the taste of the Teriyaki sauce. Last time I went to the Japanese shop around here I bought one from Kikkoman, which I had great expectations for which unfortunately were not met. I think I’m going back to making it on my own next time.

Snow-peas were a little bland (think I’m going to add some chili flakes or soy sauce next time). The tamagoyaki on the other hand turned out really well. I’m happy about that one because I managed to make it in a round pan. So far I’ve bought three rectangular frying pans. Yes, three (unfortunately from the same brand because of a lack of choice), and after the first use the non-stick coating of the pans always stopped working (and I didn’t use anything but a plastic spatula inside it). During the second use the egg started to stick so badly that I couldn’t even have gotten it off with a shovel. That means back to good old round pan and it worked!

————–

Red Bean Rice

Ingredients

• 2 cups of uncooked Japanese rice
• 1/2 - 1 cup of cooked red beans with two Tbsp of the red water they cooked in (you can use canned beans as well or you can precook the beans on the weekend and just use them for this recipe during the week)
• 2 Tbsp of soy sauce

__________

1. Wash the rice according to these instructions and put it in your rice cooker. Add the red bean water to it and the soy sauce. Now fill the pot with water until you reach the usual liquid mark for 2 cups.
2. Turn the rice cooker on and proceed as usual.
3. When done, serve with toasted sesame seeds for example. Serves 2.