Bento n°16: Miso Chicken Donburi
Feb0
Today I tried a recipe from Naomi Kijima’s bento cookbook “Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go
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!).
Bento n°15: Red Bean Rice & Teriyaki Salmon
Feb0
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!
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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
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- 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.
- Turn the rice cooker on and proceed as usual.
- When done, serve with toasted sesame seeds for example. Serves 2.
Pea Risotto with Prosciutto and Parmesan
Oct1
A few days ago I was browsing Elise’s wonderful blog and her last blog entry was about a pumpkin risotto which actually reminded me that I had never cooked nor eaten a risotto ever before. First I had to find out where to get the special, medium grain rice that you need for risotto, called “Arborio”. While walking around town this morning I actually discovered a charming little Italian grocer. He had exactly the rice I wanted plus some quality Parmesan cheese and prosciutto (12 € all in all, ouch :p).
Once I got home I started cooking immediately and when I got to the “add white wine” stage of the recipe I grabbed the sole bottle of wine I still had standing around (I normally don’t drink alcohol) and I was shocked to discover that it was a super pricey, Christmas present bottle of “Saint Joseph” wine from my father in law… well the stock was already cooking and the onions were in the pan so I couldn’t go to buy a different bottle fast. Well, I opened the bottle and prayed for my father in law never to find out :p The risotto itself was very tasty (it better be tasty at 20€ a portion^^), however I found it a tiny bit stiff so I’m going to add a little more stock next time.
(Recipe adapted from BBC food)
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 50g butter
- 30g prosciutto
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 400g Arborio rice
- 150ml white wine
- 1.5 litres hot chicken or vegetable stock
- 400g frozen peas
- 25g Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper (if needed)
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Preparation
- Prepare the chicken stock and let it simmer at low temperature.
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan together with the olive oil until they are foamy.
- Add the onion and cook them at medium-low heat until they get transparent.
- Add the prosciutto and cook everything together for about 2 minutes.
- Turn the heat up and add the rice. Cook for 2 minutes while stirring constantly.
- Add the white wine and stir until the wine is absorbed by the rice.
- Turn down the temperature to medium and with a ladle add stock to the rice until it’s just about covered.
- Cook until the stock has been absorbed. Now stir the rice continuously while adding one ladle of broth at a time, allowing the rice every time to absorb the liquid before adding a new ladle. After about 10 minutes of doing that, add the peas to the rice.
- Continue until no broth is left and until the rice is al dente (cooking time overall of the rice is 15-20 minutes).
- Just right before taking the risotto of the heat, add the rest of the butter along with the Parmesan cheese and some salt/pepper if needed.
Serves 4.
