I'm Biggie: avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom & former expat fluent in Japanese. 
Archive for the 'dumplings or buns' Category
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Sausage sunflower tutorial & lunch
Today we have more hot dog tricks, with little “sunflowers” made out of halved sausages and quail eggs (a step-by-step tutorial follows). I figured as long as I had all kinds of sausages and hot dogs leftover from my octodog tutorial, I might as well explore other things to do with them besides putting them in curry, kimchi fried rice or making little rabbits. You could also make these with vegetarian tofu dogs, chicken- or turkey-based sausages or hot dogs. I don’t know that these’ll make it into my daily repertoire (um, lazy, remember?), but my three-year-old did get a kick out of them. If you’re into food art, you could take this a step beyond and use other food to sculpt the whole flower and scenery, but this is about my limit. (See my new page on Decorative Food.)
Contents of preschooler lunch: Cornbread mini muffins, crab apple, hot dog sunflowers with fried quail egg (tutorial below), blueberries, cucumber slices, and cheese cubes.
Morning prep time: 10 minutes, using frozen mini muffins made with a mix. In the morning I made the hot dog sunflowers and packed the still-frozen muffins to defrost naturally in the bento lunch. (Read on for lunch details and the hot dog sunflower tutorial.)
Published by Biggie on March 9th, 2008 tagged bento, dumplings or buns, eggs, for kids, meat, recipe, tutorial or how to | 30 Comments »
Curry gyoza bento lunches
Gyoza potstickers are a handy finger food for kids, delivering protein and veggies in a neat little package. I like to keep a bag on hand in the freezer for mornings when I don’t have the time or imagination to make something more elaborate. Store-bought or homemade, these flavorful dumplings are a lunchtime favorite even at room temperature.
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Pan-fried curry gyoza (details and tutorial here, spinach wrappers filled with leftover Japanese curry), roasted asparagus (recipe here), blueberries, cherry tomatoes and cheese cubes.
Morning prep time: 15 minutes, using leftover roasted asparagus from dinner. In the morning I actually made the three gyoza fresh using leftover curry, but you can freeze the assembled curry gyoza and have them ready to cook on time-pressed mornings. (Read on for lunch details and an additional preschooler lunch…)
Published by Biggie on March 3rd, 2008 tagged bento, dumplings or buns, fish or seafood, food jar, for kids, meat, soup or stew | 18 Comments »
Leftover Remake: Curry gyoza
I often cook in bulk and pack leftovers for lunch, maximizing the payoff for the time I actually spend cooking. But eating the same thing day after day gets tiresome, as anyone who’s eaten turkey for a week after Thanksgiving knows. Japanese bento cookbooks are full of ways to give new life to dinner leftovers, for example using leftover potato salad to make little Scotch eggs or faux latkes with tuna.
One fast dinner option at our house is Japanese curry, made with little blocks of shelf-stable Japanese curry roux
The trick to making these is to use premade gyoza wrappers from the market, and to pick out the chunks of meat and vegetables from the curry and mash them up with only enough curry liquid to flavor it. An overly liquid filling yields soggy, flat dumplings. (Read on for step-by-step directions.)
Published by Biggie on March 1st, 2008 tagged curry, dumplings or buns, freezing, lactose free, leftover remake, recipe, tutorial or how to | 20 Comments »
Brazilian salgadinhos bento lunch
I went to a Japanese-Brazilian friend’s party this weekend where there was a gorgeous array of Brazilian savory appetizers called salgadinhos. Salgadinhos encompass a variety of different savory bites, including inverted cone-shaped stuffed “coxinhas“ whose dough is made with yucca and chicken broth, “bolinhos de peixe” fish balls, “risole” thick fried half-moons stuffed with fillings, “empada” pies baked in mini muffin tins, and Middle Eastern stuffed meat kibbeh (ground meat & bulgur wheat) that reflects the immigrant influence in Brazil.
Often eaten with hot sauce, evidently salgadinhos are popular snacks at bars and parties in Brazil. They were definitely a hit with the three-year-old birthday party crowd, who staged repeated strikes on the finger food table. Also popular were brigadeiro chocolate fudge candy and beijinho de coco coconut kisses, little Portuguese-influenced sweets made from condensed milk and rolled in either chocolate jimmies or shredded coconut. We finally had to move the plate out of reach of the children, who took up positions nearby to snatch up the chocolate balls.
I was so taken with the salgadinhos that I asked the hostess if I could take a few home to feature in a bento lunch, and she was gracious enough to give the green light and fill me in on the details. They may seem unusual for a packed lunch, but they’re in keeping with other ready-made appetizers that lend themselves nicely to the small scale of bentos, such as puff pastry appetizers, spanakopita, mini crab cakes, meatballs, etc. (Click to read the full post with lunch details…)
Published by Biggie on February 13th, 2008 tagged bento, dumplings or buns, for kids, phyllo or pancake or other, recipe | 25 Comments »
Simple broiled fish bento lunch
Instead of packing a lunch bento and a separate snack bento for my three-year-old, lately I’ve been packing larger lunches that do double duty. This works for us as I’m around after preschool to prompt him to finish up his leftovers, but if he were eating his afternoon snack on his own I’d want to pack a separate side dish container with a snack to make it a little more neat and special.
Contents of preschooler lunch: Papaya chunks, sauteed snow peas with garlic and Mae Krua Thai oyster sauce (my favorite, product spotlight here), broiled tilapia with Kewpie mayonnaise
Morning prep time: 15 minutes, including cooling time for the fish and inarizushi. In the morning I popped the fish into the toaster oven while I made the inarizushi with leftover refrigerated rice (warming the rice first in the microwave to restore the texture). The snow peas were leftover from dinner, and I’d peeled and cut the papaya the day before as a snack.
Packing: I had initially broiled the fish in a low, extra-thick aluminum baking cup (shown at left) in my convection toaster oven, thinking I’d pack it in the same cup. But I found the extra-thick cup to be too large and low for this bento box, so I wound up using very plain aluminum food cups to pack both the drained/cooled fish and the drained/cooled snow peas. I packed the lunch in two tiers (280ml & 180ml) of a four-tier stacking and nesting Thomas the Tank Engine bento box set, and bound the two tiers together with a decorative elastic bento band. This is large for a three-year-old according to the bento box size guidelines, but there’s a lot of empty space in the larger container because of the shape of the inarizushi.
Verdict: Mixed. Bug ate all of the inarizushi at preschool, and that was it. After school he ate the papaya and snow peas as a snack in the car, but announced that he didn’t like the fish after trying one piece of it. I asked him if he’d eat the fish if it had pesto sauce on it (magic sauce for Bug, which I can’t send to preschool because of their food allergy policy) and he said yes, but a night later I tried making that for dinner and he rejected it. Oh well. It just reinforces my feeling that introducing a totally new food item through Bug’s bento isn’t optimal — he’s much more open to new foods when I’m there eating it with him. (Click to read the full post with additional lunch…)
Published by Biggie on January 31st, 2008 tagged bento, dumplings or buns, fish or seafood, lactose free | 13 Comments »
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