Archive for March, 2007

Curried quail egg lunches: Multi-boiling

Morning prep time: 8 minutes (15 min. for two lunches). I cooked washed quail eggs and sausages together to save prep time, used leftover homemade yellow rice with alcaparrado (olives, pimientos and capers), nuked broccoli in the microwave steamer, and put ketchup into the sauce container. What took the most time was peeling the hard boiled quail eggs before a brief simmer in curry/soy/water (recipe below). Japanese bento cookbooks show a lot of quail eggs in children’s lunches, often colored with natural flavorings instead of dye. Yellow: curry powder or takuan packing liquid, pink: umeboshi packing liquid with red shiso or red ginger packing liquid (benishoga), purple: grape juice, brown: soy sauce, etc.

I quickly made the little egg into a “goldfish” by sticking a little sprig of parsley into one end (ouch!), and affixing a black sesame seed ‘eye’ to the egg with a little honey to make sure it didn’t fall off in transit (a hazard of intricate bento designs). Bug’s lunch is packed in a 350ml Lock & Lock container from a lunch set.

To save time in the morning, combine prep of different ingredients into one pot (or steamer, pan, broiler, etc.) — saves on both prep and cleanup time. If I’d planned it better I would have thrown the broccoli in the pot at the same time. My secret’s out — I don’t do a lot of prior planning of the exact makeup of our lunches, I just wing it as I’m packing. It is helpful to think of one item the night before, though, so you’re not completely at a loss. EDIT: Someone pointed out that the quail eggs they buy sometimes have dirty shells, so it’d be best to wash the eggs before cooking them with other food.

Here’s my lunch, the same as Bug’s except my curried quail eggs are on skewers with little plum tomatoes. Bug actually got excited when he saw my skewers, so I ate maybe one and a half and gave the rest to him. Everything’s more exciting when it’s on a pick! My lunch is packed in a 500ml Feel at Ease box that I got for about US$1 at a local Japanese dollar store (Ichiban Kan).

Curried Quail Eggs

Put quail eggs in a small pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. Turn off heat, cover, and let sit for a few minutes. Peel.
Put about 1/3 cup water in the small pot you used when boiling the eggs, add 1/2 tsp. curry powder (or more) and a splash of soy sauce. Simmer on low heat for 3 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until the color is how you want it. Cool and eat!

Note: If you can’t find fresh quail eggs (often in the egg section of an Asian grocer), you may be able to find cans of hard-boiled quail eggs. I haven’t been impressed with the texture of the canned eggs so far, but…

READ MORE:

Published by Biggie on March 31st, 2007 tagged bento, curry, eggs, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, meat, recipe, rice, tips | 31 Comments »

Speedy pupusa lunch

Morning prep time: 5 minutes (10 minutes for 2 lunches). Nothing fancy today, just leftover mini pupusas that I’d made for dinner (as big pupusas). For lunch, I cut them in half to eat as finger food, put spiced crema in the sauce containers for dipping, and cut a couple of kiwis and half of an orange. Kiwi chunks are easiest to eat with little picks.

I made the pupusas the night before with fresh masa (ground cornmeal for tortillas) and leftover homemade smoked pulled pork from the freezer, so they were fusion stuffed with North Carolina-style pulled pork, homemade barbeque sauce, sauteed onions and queso fresco.

Bug’s lunch below is a little larger than usual because I packed enough to share with his little friend in playgroup. The kids devoured these, and had a good time dipping the pupusas — success!

READ MORE:

Published by Biggie on March 30th, 2007 tagged bento, corn tortillas or masa, for kids, glutenfree, meat | 10 Comments »

Stew in thermal lunch jars

Morning prep time: 8 minutes each (15 minutes for two lunches). What’s unique about this lunch is the way I packed the stew and rice in my thermal lunch jar. When packing hot stew (or curry, etc.) in the bottom of the rice container, if you pack a layer of rice on top of the stew to create a rice “lid”: 1) it keeps both rice and stew warm, 2) you’re able to enjoy both flavors separately, and 3) it keeps the liquidy stew from leaking if the lunch container is manhandled in transit. I saw this tip in a Japanese bento cookbook, originally for packing Japanese curry for a child in one of the little insulated bento sets like the one Bug used below. This is particularly helpful with my adult thermal lunch jars, as the biggest container is for rice, and the seal on the lid is not water-tight. Using this packing method I was able to pack the largest container with my main dish without leakage. This technique also works with regular thermal food jars, keeping hot food hot for better food safety.

I had leftover sancocho (Latin American stew that I made with beef, tripe, potatoes, yucca and malanga — like taro) from the night before, so when cleaning up after dinner I packed up my stew in a thermal lunch jar, chopped up Bug’s stew and put it in a microwave-safe dish, and popped both into the refrigerator overnight. It was one of the occasions when I actually made rice for dinner, so I let the rice sit in the rice cooker overnight. In the morning all I did was nuke both bowls of stew, put Bug’s hot stew into his thermal food jar, pack warm rice, nuked broccoli in my microwave mini steamer, throw some speed bento items into mine (frozen spaghetti cup, cherry tomatoes, and cheese triangle), and used the spare time to make a quick tamagoyaki (rolled egg) in my smallest tamagoyaki pan (step-by-step tutorial here). Once you get the hang of making rolled egg you can crank them out in a hurry.

Here’s my lunch when fully packed. Note the full “lid” of rice on top of the stew in the large container.

Bug’s lunch has pretty much the same items as mine, but his hot stew is packed inside of the thermal food jar that came with his insulated bento set. At 560ml total capacity, this bento set is a little large for a two-year old (according to the bento box size guidelines I translated), so I left a lot of empty room in the container for the stew so that we were able to add the rice when he was ready to eat it.

EDIT: The Daily Tiffin food and lifestyle blog would like you to show them your lunch: details here.

RELATED POSTS:

Published by Biggie on March 29th, 2007 tagged bento, eggs, food jar, for kids, glutenfree, lactose free, meat, rice, soup or stew, thermal lunch jar, tips | 19 Comments »

Food safety for packed lunches (old and new wisdom)

A major concern when packing lunch is making sure the food won’t spoil by the time it’s eaten. I’ve been doing some research on the different methods Japanese and Americans recommend for safe packed food, to reconcile traditional wisdom with new methods and research on foods with antibacterial properties. There are many different methods, I’ve described them in detail below with sources. These are only guidelines for food safety; please make your own decisions about what you’re comfortable packing and eating (I am not a food safety authority).

An outline of methods to ensure your packed lunch won’t spoil (details behind the cut):

Incorporate food and products with antibacterial properties
Keep it clean: Don’t introduce bacteria into the lunch when packing
Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold, using thermal jars and cold packs
Pack less perishable foods, especially in the summer
- Extra precautions for hot weather
- Handy foods for hot weather
- How to make dishes less perishable

1. Incorporate food and products with antibacterial properties

Foods

Japanese bento cookbooks often suggest packing foods with antibacterial properties in lunches in order to keep food from spoiling. Suggested foods include umeboshi (pickled plum), wasabi, ginger, karashi, salt, shiso, parsley and vinegar (i.e. making sushi rice, or putting an umeboshi or a tablespoon or two of rice vinegar in the cooking water when making rice). Some books recommend wiping the inside of the bento box with a slice of ginger before packing.New USDA- and NSF-funded research on foods with antibacterial properties has yielded a number of additions that are interesting when packing non-Japanese food for lunch. The strongest antibacterial foods (killing all bacteria) are evidently garlic, onion, allspice and oregano. The second strongest (killing up to 80% of bacteria) include thyme, cinnamon, tarragon, cumin (and lemongrass). The third strongest (killing up to 75% of bacteria) are capsicums, including chilies and hot peppers. The fourth strongest (killing 25% of bacteria) include white and black pepper, ginger, anise seed, celery seed, and lemon or lime juice. Honey has antibacterial properties, and the dodecenal compound in cilantro/coriander (both fresh leaves and seeds) is evidently one of the stronger antibacterials as well. (see sources 1 - 3 below)

Products

There are a number of bento products in Japan that have been treated with an antibacterial coating (i.e. flavorless compounds extracted from wasabi, etc.), designed to help stave off microbial growth in packed lunches. These include aluminum food cups for cooking, plastic sheets that you place on the surface of your packed food, and food dividers (”baran”) that look like sushi grass. These must be touching the surface of the food to be effective. I bought the products below at local Japanese dollar stores and markets in San Francisco; click the photos for larger views and details. EDIT: Not all food dividers and food cups are antibacterial; they must have the Japanese characters that mean “antibacterial” on them (click the product photos below for a larger view with the appropriate characters pointed out in a note on the photo).

Antibacterial food dividers and bento sheets:

Antibacterial cups:

2. Keep it Clean: Don’t introduce bacteria into the lunch when packing

Make sure your hands, food prep area, utensils and lunch containers are clean. When possible, use utensils (chopsticks, spoon, tongs, plastic wrap) to place, mold and arrange unwrapped food in your lunch container. If you’re using a bento box with a rubber packing strip around the lid, be sure to periodically remove, wash and thoroughly dry the packing seal (and the groove in the lid). This will keep your box clean and ensure that the packing strip does not crack, which would leave you without a watertight seal.

3. Avoid the temperature danger zone with perishable foods

The danger zone for bacteria growth is between 40 to 140º F (4 to 60º C, or room temperature). An extremely effective way to keep food safe until you eat it is to minimize the time food spends in this temperature zone (ideally less than three hours). The USDA’s food safety page has a number of useful guidelines.
Keep hot foods hot by using a pre-heated insulated thermos or food jar for liquids like curries, soups, stews, etc. To pre-heat, fill the thermos with hot water, let it stand for a minute or two, empty the thermos, and fill with hot food (close it quickly!). You can get little kid-sized 300ml food jars at stores like Target or Walmart, bigger food jars, or even large thermal lunch jars with multiple containers inside (like the Mr. Bento or Ms. Bento) from Amazon.com.
Keep cold perishable foods cold by storing your lunch in a refrigerator (if available) or using insulated lunch bags or containers with cold gel packs. Western versions include insulated lunchboxes, the Laptop Lunchbox, Fit N Fresh containers; Japanese versions include insulated bento bags and picnic sets, bento boxes with a gel pack integrated into the lid, and insulated bento kits (with a thermal jar for the lid, two lidded side containers and an insulated carrying bag that you can put a gel pack into to carry hot and cold items at the same time). Thermal lunch jars can also be pre-chilled with ice water and used to pack chilled lunches. Click on the photos below for a larger view.

4. Pack less perishable foods, especially in the summer. Rice becomes hard and unappetizing when refrigerated at low temperatures, so many Japanese forego refrigeration and cold packs for their rice-based bentos, choosing instead to incorporate antibacterial foods, pack foods that are less likely to spoil, and make their food less perishable through traditional cooking/packing methods.

A. Extra precautions for hot weather

Japanese bento cookbooks instruct you to make sure all food in a bento has been thoroughly heated through to the middle, so in hot weather scramble eggs until they are dry. Avoid raw or rare meat, poultry, fish or eggs. Avoid raw fillings for onigiri (make sure tarako is grilled). Heat (then cool) even processed meats like sausages or hot dogs before packing to kill any bacteria that may have been introduced after processing.
Avoid dairy products such as yogurt (especially when spooned out of a larger container).
Avoid moist, liquidy foods.
Avoid regular tofu as it sheds water into the bento and spoils easily.
Avoid raw vegetables except cherry tomatoes.
Avoid cut fruit as it spoils easily; pack whole fruit like a banana instead.
Exercise caution with cooked rice, potatoes, grains and legumes (spice heavily, mix with antibacterial foods, dry thoroughly).

B. Handy foods that survive summer heat

Cherry tomatoes
Rice that has been mixed with pickled vegetables, chopped umeboshi, or other foods with antibacterial properties
Whole fruit
Canned fruit that has been frozen in single-serving freezer containers (pack frozen to act as a cool pack)
One-bite jellies that have been frozen (pack frozen to act as a cool pack)
Juice boxes or bottled water that have been frozen (pack frozen to act as a cool pack)

C. How to make dishes less perishable

With moist, liquidy foods, first dry before packing (drain in a small colander or on paper towels) and pack in a paper food cup to contain any excess moisture.
Spice foods more heavily than usual.
If you’re cooking or heating foods right before packing them in a bento, be sure to cool them first before packing. Once you’ve packed the bento, allow the whole bento to cool further with its lid off to avoid condensation on the inside of the box. This also makes the box easier to open at lunchtime (an important point for preschoolers!).

Sources:
1) 1998 Cornell study on antibacterial spices: http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/98/3.5.98/spices.html
2) Cilantro article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-05/acs-is052404.php
3) CookWise, Shirley O. Corriher, 1997.
4) The New Professional Chef, Culinary Institute of America
5) USDA lunch food safety guidelines: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ftteats.html#lunch
6) USDA Freezing/Refrigerating time chart: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fttstore.html
7) Aijo Tappuri! Obento, Shufu no Tomo, 2007.
Obento Daijiten, Index Magazine, 2005.

READ MORE:

Published by Biggie on March 27th, 2007 tagged equipment, parenthacks, tips, tutorial or how to | 38 Comments »

Shumai “burger” lunches

Morning prep time: 5 minutes (10 minutes for two lunches). We’ve got leftover spaghetti puttanesca (with tomatoes, olives, capers, anchovies and olive oil), steamed broccoli and kabocha squash (cooked together quickly in a microwave mini steamer, speeding up cook time 50%), and pan-fried frozen shumai (a.k.a. siomai or siumai). I saw the pan-fried shumai in a Japanese bento cookbook, described as a “Chinese hamburger” — I got a chuckle out of that. I keep a few sauce bottles pre-filled with dipping sauces we use a lot (such as soy, dumpling dipping sauce, hot sauce, Lizano, etc.), so I was able to just grab a couple and throw them into our lunches. Tiny green grapes and a cherry tomato act as “gap fillers” to stabilize the lunch for transport.

The shumai “burgers” were fast and easy, using frozen shumai (Chinese dumplings). I microwaved the frozen shumai until soft (30 seconds on high in my 1100W microwave), heated a nonstick frying pan on medium heat, sprayed it with vegetable oil, and pan-fried the dumplings until crispy, mashing them down with a spatula throughout.

Bug does better if I cut up his spaghetti for him, so I did this quickly with clean kitchen scissors after putting the pasta in the bento box. Bug actually doesn’t like olives or capers, so I pulled those out of his puttanesca so he’d eat the whole thing. Success! He made a beeline for the finger food shumai “burgers” first, grabbed one of mine, then attacked all of the broccoli and pasta. He wasn’t interested in the kabocha, though — you never can tell (he usually likes it). Bug’s lunch is packed in a 350ml container, just about right according to the Japanese nutrition and bento box size guidelines. I used a little plastic divider (”baran”) to keep the crispy shumai away from the moist broccoli, and threw in a tiny pick for the kabocha.