Archive for the 'meat' Category

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Metal bento boxes & Shepherd’s pie

(ADDENDUM: Please accept my apologies for the downtime Lunch in a Box has been experiencing lately. My hosting company has had an unprecedented number of issues lately, and I will be switching providers shortly.)

I’ve seen fun little aluminum bento boxes for children in stores from time to time, but have always been puzzled by their lack of watertight lids. Why use metal boxes that leak? I asked the moms at Bug’s Japanese immersion preschool and searched through my Japanese-language bento cookbooks to find some answers.

In Japan, evidently preschools have special ovens to warm up the children’s metal boxes in the winter, but because most of the cute aluminum boxes lack watertight seals, Japanese parents have had to get creative with how they pack lunches in them. Benefits of metal boxes include being able to cook food directly in the box (when using an oven-safe container, also true of tempered glass boxes), the absence of health concerns associated with packing food in plastic, and lighter weight than glass boxes. Drawbacks include not being able to microwave metal containers and potential leaking caused by the loose, non-secure lid.

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Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Mini Shepherd’s pie (seasoned ground beef with vegetables, topped with mashed potatoes and melted Cheddar cheese; simple web recipe here), and a side dish container with a black Mission fig, Concord grapes, and different colored cherry tomatoes.

Speed Tip: When you’re making dinner, make a little extra that can be saved and eaten for lunch (either as is or as a Leftover Remake). The Shepherd’s pie didn’t take extra time when cooking — I just separated out a little, assembled in lunch-friendly containers, and threw them into the fridge for later.

Morning prep time: 8 minutes, using pre-made Shepherd’s pie from dinner earlier in the week. In the morning I grated some cheese and ran it briefly under the broiler in my convection toaster oven to melt the cheese. I let it cool before putting the plastic lid on top. (Read on for details, tips for using metal bento boxes, sample pages from Japanese bento cookbooks, and additional lunches.)

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Published by Biggie on October 6th, 2008 tagged bento, curry, decorative, equipment, for kids, glutenfree, meat, onigiri or sushi, potatoes, rice, tips | 16 Comments »

Bento lunches on live TV news

Last Friday I drove to Sacramento to do a TV segment about American-style bento on the local Fox40 morning news. I brought two big bags full of bento boxes, three packed bento lunches, thermal lunch jars, bags, and accessories, with an electric kettle to make molded eggs and an apple to make some quick apple rabbits on air.

I came prepared to cook and assemble an actual bento lunch live, but breaking news about Hurricane Ike shortened the time available and killed some other segments. Hey, at least I survived and got on the air! The original live spot was a little longer, but was edited down to 3.5 minutes for the website. In other news, there’s a lengthy interview with me up at the Food Interviews blog; have a look if you’re curious and check out some of the other interesting food interviews.

My three-year-old was a little puzzled as to why I was making four bentos the night before the TV shoot, and kept asking me which one was his lunch. He was just fine with his normal speed bento until he saw the super-cute Japanese food art lunch that I made to illustrate the other end of the bento spectrum, and made me promise to save that one for him to eat after preschool. I kept it on ice in an insulated lunch bag to make sure it survived the day, only taking it out briefly for the actual filming. Here it is, setting the bar too high for normal rushed parents (sorry!). I showed it live on-air, but it was edited out of the online segment.

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Contents of preschooler bento lunch for TV: Rice balls shaped like an elephant, fish, and bird (flavored with green hana-ebi fish powder, pink sakura denbu sweet fish powder, and salmon furikake rice sprinkles, decorated with cheese and nori seaweed). Mini cocktail sausages, a hard-boiled quail egg molded to look like a bird, edamame skewers, cherry tomatoes, blueberries, edamame shumai dumpling and dipping sauce. (Click on any photo for a larger view.)

Prep time: 45 minutes, WAY too long for a speed bento (contrast this with Bug’s actual lunch, below). I used frozen rice and shumai to speed up the process, but this was still too time-consuming for a regular weekday lunch. Honestly, it was a little irritating to make as I don’t usually spend this much time on a single lunch. (Read on for three more Western lunches and more about the TV shoot.)

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Published by Biggie on September 17th, 2008 tagged bento, decorative, dumplings or buns, eggs, for kids, meat, onigiri or sushi, phyllo or pancake or other, rice, sandwich case, sandwich or wrap | 53 Comments »

Speed Bento- Ice Cube Tray Nigiri

Please welcome guest author Amorette (Sakurako Kitsa), who is writing a series on how to make decorative art bento lunches. ~Biggie

Ice Cube Nigiri

Although Biggie definitely has the market cornered on speed-bento, I do know of a few tricks. Maybe they just stem from overextending myself in one area (intricate art bento) and wanting to be lazy elsewhere.

Nigiri made with an ice cube tray are easy and fast, fast, fast.

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Published by Amorette on September 4th, 2008 tagged Amorette, bento, eggs, meat, onigiri or sushi, rice, tips, tutorial or how to | 38 Comments »

How to make Spam Musubi

No, no — don’t go away! I know Spam sushi sounds awful, but hear me out. I first heard of the Hawaiian classic Spam musubi when I was in college a long time ago, and I have to admit I was pretty skeptical. Come on, Spam spiced ham loaf? In sushi? You’ve got to be kidding me.

About eight years ago, some of my Hawaiian friends decided to hold a luau here in California, complete with a whole pig cooked in an underground pit dug in their back yard. So as a novelty, I volunteered to make a party-sized batch of Spam musubi (shown at right). Funny thing, though. Once I started cooking (frying the Spam, flavoring it with homemade teriyaki sauce, putting wasabi furikake on the rice for a little kick), it started to smell really appetizing and I tried some. Wow! I’ve been a convert ever since and try all the different variations I run across, although I only make it a couple of times a year as it can be labor-intensive.

There are a number of variations on Spam musubi, including Spam makizushi (rolled in a long, skinny sushi roll), sandwich-style Spam musubi (shown above), traditional-style Spam musubi with a narrow strip of nori (shown below), Spam musubi with a layer of egg inside, etc. I’ve even had tasty versions that replace the Spam with teriyaki chicken, barbecued chicken, chicken katsu, or Portuguese sausage. As with rice balls, feel free to experiment with alternate fillings, especially those that are strongly flavored. I suspect that Korean barbecue like bulgogi or kalbi would also be tasty prepared this way, especially when fully wrapped in rice and seaweed as shown above. What variations have you seen? (Click for the full recipe and step-by-step tutorial.)

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Published by Biggie on August 20th, 2008 tagged lactose free, meat, onigiri or sushi, recipe, rice, tutorial or how to | 76 Comments »

Toned-down spicy bento lunches for kids

We often eat food that’s too spicy for our three-year-old, but find ways to salvage it for his developing palate that don’t require me to be a short-order cook, making a whole separate meal for him (see my mommy’s lunch manifesto). Some things are more easily tamed with a quick rinse, like mild kimchi. I used to think that dishes like Thai curry just needed the addition of yogurt to tame them, but even this usually doesn’t do the trick fully. So instead I started plucking the meat, seafood and veggies out of the curry, rinsing them off in a little sieve under water, and re-saucing them in milder sauces like vinaigrette, sanbaizu sweet vinegar sauce (see my sanbaizu recipe), barbecue sauce (Western or Korean), teriyaki sauce, or even just salad dressing. Use your creativity with whatever you have on hand! How do you make spicy leftovers palatable for sensitive mouths? Let us know in comments!

Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Homemade kalbi (or galbi, Korean grilled marinated beef short ribs), an onigiri rice ball filled with chopped kalbi, chopped kimchi, red lettuce, blueberries and a strawberry.

Morning prep time: 12 minutes, using leftover kalbi from dinner, rinsed kimchi and frozen rice. In the morning I microwaved the frozen rice, chopped the kalbi and kimchi, and quickly made the onigiri rice ball with my wet, salted hands.

Packing: Regular kimchi is too spicy for my preschooler as is, so I generally rinse it off before giving it to Bug (his favorite is the sour ggakdugi daikon kimchi cubes). I chopped up the kimchi because I had originally intended to stuff the onigiri with it, but Bug saw what I was doing and said he didn’t want the kimchi inside of the rice. So I made a mid-course correction and substituted chopped kalbi beef for the onigiri filling. (Read on for full details and an additional spicy-turned-mild bento lunch.)