La petite biscotte

Contents:
- Whole-wheat spaghetti “à la provençale”
- Snow peas
- Tamagoyaki
- Apple rabbits

As it’s getting hotter around here in Germany (surprisingly it hasn’t rained since 3 days) I’m naturally leaning towards lighter meals and bentos. This recipe for pasta is great because it tastes even more delicious when it’s cooled off. You can freeze leftovers in portions and just put them in the bento box quickly in the morning. While the spaghetti unfreeze on the way, they also cool your bento, which is especially important in summer. The only thing I actually had to make in the morning was the tamagoyaki, the apple rabbits and the snow peas (15 minutes including time to pack up the bento).

 Spaghetti à la provençale

• 150g spring onions
• 100g celery
• 1 yellow or red pepper
• 1/2 zucchini
• 1 tomato
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 250g whole wheat pasta
• salt, pepper
• herbes de provence

Put water to heat in a large saucepan for the spaghetti. Meanwhile cut the vegetables in bite sized pieces, slice the spring onions and dice the tomato. Heat the olive oil in the pan and start by adding the spring onions. After 1 min add the other vegetables beside the tomato and cover the pan with a lid. Stir occasionally and finish cooking the pasta, then drain them and sprinkle with a little olive oil so they don’t stick. After about 5 minutes remove the lid from the pan, add the tomato and season to taste. Cook for 2 more minutes and add the herbes de provence. Finish by putting the pasta into the pan and tossing it with the vegetables. Serves 4, enjoy!

Been a long time yes, but I was simply overwhelmed by my internship. I found the time to make this delicious bento though and surprisingly the highlight was the little pile of pickled radish that was actually just an experiment. With some preparation this bento can be assembled in 15 minutes (I used left over zucchini tempura, the only thing I actually had to cook was the stir-fry and the omelet, I also used frozen rice which I unfroze in the microwave).

Contents:

• Japonica rice
• Quick-pickled radish
• Sliced omelet
• Cabbage / spring onion / red pepper stir fry (seasoned with soy sauce only)
• Zucchini tempura

Quick-pickled radish:

• 100g of grated or sliced radish (the red ones make  for a pretty color)
• 4 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp salt

While you are making your bento, start out by grating the radish and combining it with the other ingredients in a bowl, stir well so the salt gets everywhere. Cover the bowl with a plate or a lid and put it in the fridge. By the time the rest is done, spread a cheese cloth over your sink or another big bowl and spoon the pickled radish on it. Wrap the cloth together and squeeze the radish through the cloth as hard as you can so all the excess liquid is removed. It’s ready to be used. While packing it, best put it in a seperate container within the box.

Contents

• Cherry Tomatoes
• Salmon Rolls
• Octopus Fried Wieners
• 1 Egg cut in a half
• Onigiri
• Broccoli

Today I decided to have a little fun with my bento. Usually I’m not making octopus wieners because I have to take my bento to university, but today we simply made a bento for eating lunch at home. Unfortunately I think I’m addicted to it now. I mean, I tried to shape a face for the octopus wieners from squished rice corns and sesame seeds and now the sausages have their own personality! By observing this endangered species closer, we notice clearly that the left octopus’s character and behavior seem to differ entirely from the right octopus’s. Smarty (on the left) seems to be the intelligent and cynical leader of the octopus family, contemplating the injustice of life itself. Meanwhile Dooley (on the right) has a rather blank expression, signalling that his mind seems to be mostly void of complex thoughts and that the sole purpose driving him in life is the quest for yummy food. Venturing further in our analysis, it is safe to say that Smarty seems to be the female octopus while Dooley is most certainly a male. As, you see, octopi always wander in pairs - like Pinky and the Brain - scheming and plotting to take the world over. Indeed, that is what truly happens under the lid of your lunchbox.

Biggie over at lunch in a box has posted a great tutorial on how to make octopus sausages, click here to view it. I tried it out today for the first time and it worked perfectly.

And here is a more or less informative video on how to make onigiri. I don’t say that because of the quality of the recording but as you’ll notice for yourself, making onigiri is mostly about practice until you get the shape right and of course keep those hands wet!

Oh, what a horrible picture… better ones to come soon - promise!

Contents:

• Japanese rice with chicken, carrots and aburaage
• Steamed brussel sprouts
• Finely shredded thin omelette
• Polenta crusted chicken

Today is a sinister day indeed as I decided to let go of the dear camera that has so far accompanied me on my culinary adventures. Unfortunately it’s been a while since I noticed that the camera was ailing. The pictures, as you probably have noticed, are completely blurred and I simply don’t manage to arrange enough lighting in the room for the camera to stop taking my movements into account. Even pictures that I take outside are not as sharp as I’d like them to be but I have to say that I’m not the least bit surprised. After all, I had bought the thing for 99 Euros at a department store and at the time I didn’t even think about using it for food photography. So yes, I decided that it was high time to stop disappointing myself and my readers with blurred pictures and as far as my investigations go, I found out that my dear husband is maybe going to offer me a new camera for my birthday on March 14 but pssst, it’s all top secret still!

The bento that you see above was assembled rather quickly as I’m still struggling to get enough time to even cook properly. What’s great about it is that you can prepare it with a minimum of dishes. I used the rice cooker to make the chicken/aburaage rice and I added the steaming container on top to cook the brussel sprouts at the same time. Apart from that I only used a frying pan for the polenta crusted chicken which I managed to coat and fry while the rice was cooking. You might wonder what aburaage is and sadly it’s one of those things you can only find in bigger Asian supermarkets. Basically it’s deep fried tofu slices which are often canned and preserved in a sweet-savory sauce (it’s those brown little bags that are used for Inari sushi). You can sometimes find them in shops that are specialized in Japanese ingredients but don’t be surprised if they ask 4-5 euros for a little can, but hey, once in a while…

I won’t add a recipe for the polenta crusted chicken because it’s really just chicken coated first in flour, then egg, then polenta (then fried). But when you choose the corn flour (or polenta) for this, be sure to choose the one with the smallest grains and be sure to cook it in enough oil, else the grains will be too crunchy.

Japanese Rice with Chicken, Carrot, Aburaage (Inspired by Bento Boxes, Japanese meals on the go)

• 2 cups uncooked Japanese rice, washed
• 1 small carrot, julienned
• 100g of aburaage, julienned
• 100g chicken, diced
• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp mirin
• 1/2 Tbsp sake

Put the rice into your rice cooker and add the soy sauce, mirin and sake. Add enough water so it reaches the usual 2-cup mark. Place the other ingredients on top of the rice and turn on your rice cooker. Once the rice is cooked stir in the ingredients from the top and add seasoning to taste. Serves 4, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds for example.

Contents:

• Gnocchi
• Tomato relish
• Snow-pea stir-fry with soy sauce and chili flakes
• Mini sandwich with salad and lettuce

Ah yes, sweet student life, whenever you think you have a little time to yourself something comes up and you end up spending your holidays busy with random stuff. Like we have this fabulous internship coming up for April. Normally universities, especially here in France, try to incorporate as many internships as possible in the study program for both bachelor and master degrees. Personally I don’t question the necessity of internships and they are absolutely crucial after several semesters of acquiring theoretical knowledge, which, in all honesty, is mostly useless for your future professional career. Yes, the intentions of universities are indeed honorable, but when reality strikes in, you often find yourself stuck in a small company that tries to replace full-time workers by chain hiring interns. Some of my friends at university have to work under abominable conditions, yet they still can deem themselves lucky to have found some sort of working experience to validate their semester. As a student, especially here in France at a public university, it’s difficult sometimes not to lose your motivation when all the support you get is “make it work” from your professors. But hey, all of this is just to make us a stronger, right? Right!

Anyway, enough ranting, let’s get back to business. This bento was quickly made with left-over gnocchi and a tomato relish (the recipe is from one of Jamie Oliver’s cook books). The sandwich and the snow-pea stir-fry are really nothing special. I really liked the taste of the tomato relish with the gnocchi but one must be very careful with packing the relish. It tends to be rather liquid so a leak-proof container with a compartment that can separate gnocchi from relish is needed. Overall I’m not quite happy with the presentation and I’d really like to get back to making more elaborate bentos but for now I’ve got almost no spare time

Recipe section

Tomato relish

Ingredients

• 100 ml vinegar (the lightest one you have)
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 400g cherry tomatoes, chopped
• salt, pepper
• 3 Tbsp olive oil

Preparation

In a small saucepan combine vinegar, sugar and the shallot. Bring to a boil and reduce to half at least. Then add the cherry tomatoes and let them get hot. Remove from heat immediately and season with salt, pepper and olive oil.

Serves 2-3. Can accompany various things like pasta or meat dishes.

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!).

(more…)

During the last two weeks I didn’t get much time to post but I managed to keep reading my favorite blogs and some very interesting things have been posted:

Biggie over at Lunch in a Box updated her link section (click here) with a lot of new bento blogs/sites. Over the past year or two the trend seems to have spread and there are so many bento blogs now, it’s amazing!

For everyone that lives in Europe and especially in France it might be very difficult sometimes to come buy Japanese articles such as bento boxes or cooking utensils. Ichiban Kan is a Japanese discount dollar store that has several subsidiaries all over America. You can get all those great colorful articles from Japan there for very cheap. Unfortunately in Europe there is no such store yet. But luckily thanks to Biggie on Lunch in a Box, I found out that Ichiban Kan is opening an online store. Check out Ichiban Kan’s blog for more info. Bento Toys r Us, yay!

Did you ever hear of furikake? No? (And I’m sorry to disappoint but it’s nothing filthy I’m getting at) Furikake is a topping for rice that can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge. You can assemble bentos very quickly in the morning with it and most of the time it enhances the looks of the bento greatly. Maki at Just Bento made a few great posts about several furikake recipes. They are a great help, especially if you don’t have much time.

One last AWESOME thing I discovered for bento lovers is this flickr community, which is very active and frequently updated with bento pictures. There are so many that you couldn’t watch all of them in a whole day! Me likes.

That’s it so far, more to come soon!

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.

Another speed post (I’m sorry), exams aren’t over yet:

Contents:

• Fried Rice
• Baked Broccoli with Gruyère
• Cherry Tomatoes
• 2 Red Bean Burgers

——–

Et oui, encore un article abrégé, les examens ne sont pas encore terminés:

Contenu

• Riz frit
• Brocoli gratiné au gruyère
• Tomates cerise
• 2 Steaks de haricots rouges

Exams take their toll on students, not only mentally but actually physically as well. Personally, I have to ressort to take-out / fast food / sandwiches just to be able to eat anything (we really have that little time). I really loath this and I feel unhealthy during this period: I’m tired, don’t have much energy and am simply unsatisfied after every meal.

I’m still trying to squeeze in a bento every now and then and I wouldn’t be able to do so without my speed tips:

1. Plan your bento on the way home from work.
When you take the bus or the car to drive back home you probably have a minute or two to yourself. Use that time to plan your bento! Think about what you have in the fridge, what needs to be used, what you FEEL like eating and compose your imaginary bento. If necessary you can even stop by the supermarket and fetch a few ingredients on the way.

2. Cook more or cook in advance.
Once you come home you’ll have to eat anyway, so why not make more of what you eat tonight so you can put some in your bento for tomorrow (given the fact that you make something preservable)? That’s catching two birds with one stone. If you have the main dish already ready for your bento, the other components come together really quickly. There are also great dishes that can be cooked in advance and that preserve really well for up to a week in the fridge. More recipes for such dishes coming soon.

3. The principle of 3.
My bentos mostly have 3 components: Main dish, side dish, additions (decoration/dessert/condiments). If you think like that you are limited in the number of dishes you have to put together, which will prevent you from drifting away too much and cooking up too many things. Try to keep it simple and don’t stuff your bento with too many things, you can always get fancier when you have time.

4. Think about your bentos while shopping.
You can buy great things that are available in every supermarket to stuff your bentos quickly. A few examples: cherry tomatoes, little cheeses, canned foods (say what you want, I don’t find it a shame to use a canned foods once in a while), pickles, frozen vegetables (can be steamed quickly in the microwave), nuts, sweets or crackers in satchets, grapes etc. The trick is, you must stimply think about picking those things up while you shop.

5. Freeze in portions.
When you have rice left over (while it’s still hot) or any other type of food that freezes well, don’t just stuff everything in one bag. Measure 1-cup portions and freeze them individually. This will speed things up greatly because there is nothing more time consuming than trying to chop off one portion from a frozen chunk.