La petite biscotte

Today I tried a recipe from Naomi Kijima’s bento cookbook “Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go“. This is about the only bento cookbook from Japan that has been translated into English. The problem actually lies there, the book might be a big success in Japan but I imagine that people in western countries won’t find much use for it. The main issue being that many recipes simply use ingredients that you can’t get around here, even with the best Asian supermarket close-by: Fish cake, taro root, atsuage, nagenegi, konnyaku noodles, burdock root… I mean let’s be honest, I wouldn’t even recognize those ingredients if they’d bite me in the foot.

Still I don’t think that the book is useless at all. Actually you can use many recipes and simply make your own variations. For instance if I would substitute burdock root with celery (I’m sure celery doesn’t even come close to the taste but hey), my husband wouldn’t notice. And if he does reclaim burdock root he can try to search for it himself next time we go to our local Asian supermarket. (Good luck with that)

The book can be a great inspiration, especially if you’d like examples for bento that can be brought to a rather serious working environment. Miss Kitty boxes and pirate ship scenes with rice ball monsters and octopus wieners certainly have a kawaii effect, but if bento are really your every day meal at work you might have to resort to something more sober and the recipes in ‘Bento Boxes’ are a great example for that (minus burdock roots and the likes!).

Miso Chicken Donburi (2 servings)

Ingredients

• 1/2 big onion or 1 small onion
• 1 medium sized carrot
• 1 green pepper
• 1 chicken breast finely diced or 100g ground chicken
• 3 Tbsp miso paste
• 1 Tbsp sake
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp cooking oil

Preparation

Finely chop the onion and dice the pepper/carrot, the dice should be rather small. Heat the oil in a medium sized pan until it is nicely hot then reduce the temperature to medium. Cook the chicken in the pan until it is cooked and even slightly golden brown. Add the onions and the carrots and cook everything for 1 minute, a little longer if you like your carrots soft. Now add the pepper as well as the miso paste, the sake and 4 Tbsp of water. Let simmer for 3 minutes then dissolve the cornstarch in a little water and add it. Keep it on the heat until the mixture has thickened then remove it. Serve over cooked rice.

Enjoy!