I'm Biggie: avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom & former expat fluent in Japanese. 
Archive for the 'onigiri or sushi' Category
(Chronologically Listed)
Decorative rice ball lunch & how-to
Today’s lunch illustrates an easy way to dress up an onigiri rice ball using ordinary plastic wrap and a little box. This is the first time I used this new little 350ml two-tier bento box that I found at Sanko in San Francisco’s Japantown for $8 (see my full store review or a brief writeup in the San Francisco Bay Area shopping guide for bento gear). 350ml is small, so it might seem unnecessary to split it into two tiers (especially ones that don’t nest inside each other when empty). But there is a reason behind it: the small shallow upper tier is the right size and shape for making decorative onigiri rice balls with the help of a little plastic wrap.
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Onigiri rice ball with edamame and pre-cut nori seaweed shaped like Shinkansen, a little sauce container with Gohan Desu Yo! jarred seaweed paste for the rice, kiwi, broccoli, roasted eel (unagi kabayaki), and red/yellow bell pepper strips with Annie’s Green Goddess salad dressing (surprisingly good). Not pictured is a side dish container with snack strips of seasoned Korean seaweed shown in this bibimbap lunch, which is my three-year-old’s favorite way to eat rice: making little packets of rice with seaweed paste on Korean seaweed.
Morning prep time: 13 minutes, using frozen rice and leftover unagi eel. In the morning I microwaved some frozen rice, slapped together the rice ball (instructions below), and multi-cooked the vegetables in my microwave mini steamer, and filled the little sauce container. I could have taken a lot more time to really fancy up the rice ball, but that’s not my style and Bug was pleased enough with minimal decoration. (Read on for full cooking details, a review of the little bento box, and an additional lunch with pasta frittata.)
Published by Biggie on April 18th, 2008 tagged bento, eggs, fish or seafood, for kids, lactose free, leftover remake, meat, onigiri or sushi | 25 Comments »
Appetizers for lunch
Welcome to those of you who found your way here from recent write-ups in Boing Boing, Neatorama, Slashfood and Serious Eats! Please feel free to ask questions or comment even on old entries, and accept my apologies for some lingering issues from the site’s being hacked last week (some character encoding is wonky, and Google-powered internal search is down until the site is reindexed by Google).
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Teriyaki pineapple chicken meatballs, broccoli with vinaigrette, steamed red bell pepper with Korean barbecue sauce, blueberries, and onigiri rice balls filled with Gohan Desu Yo! seaweed paste and wrapped in packaged, pre-cut seasoned nori seaweed snack strips.
To give the rice the red and green color, I mixed the rice with red and green hana-ebi powdered dried shrimp. A variation on sakura denbu (a sweet powder of ground codfish that’s often used in chirashizushi), hana ebi is a savory shrimp powder from Hawaii. You can see the results of all three types in an early snack bento for my son. (see my page on Decorative Food for other ideas)
Morning prep time: 12 minutes, using frozen rice and pre-made meatballs from Costco (Aidells brand, my favorite). In the morning I warmed the frozen rice in the microwave, and started working on the rice balls while the broccoli, bell pepper and meatballs multi-cooked in my microwave mini steamer at the same time. (Read on for details and an additional preschooler lunch.)
Published by Biggie on April 15th, 2008 tagged bento, for kids, lactose free, meat, onigiri or sushi | 25 Comments »
Mini onigiri & special Marmite lunches
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Shrimp and scallop cakes (review here), roasted asparagus (simple recipe here), blueberries, Moro blood orange, and mini onigiri rice balls made of rice mixed with salmon-flavored furikake rice seasoning and julienned thin egg sheets (usuyaki tamago, speedy microwave recipe here). Cooking notes for the mini rice balls follow.
Morning prep time: 15 minutes, using leftover asparagus, frozen rice, frozen julienned thin egg sheets and frozen Jeremiah’s shrimp and scallop cakes from Costco. In the morning I pan-fried the seafood cakes and made the little onigiri. I got a bit distracted with the onigiri when frying, though, and the bottoms got a bit too brown (not that my three-year-old minded). Frying the shrimp & scallop cakes in more oil than I had done previously helped them develop a crust and stay together as finger food, but as you can see my attention span isn’t all that great first thing in the morning. (Read on for cooking notes, limited edition Guinness- and champagne-flavored Marmite yeast extract spreads, and an additional preschooler lunch.)
Published by Biggie on April 5th, 2008 tagged bento, fish or seafood, for kids, lactose free, onigiri or sushi, sandwich case, sandwich or wrap | 24 Comments »
Hanami cherry blossom viewing picnic
On Sunday our family did a version of hanami, the Japanese spring tradition of having a party under sakura cherry trees during that brief moment that they’re in bloom. We went to Golden Gate Park, where we were able to enjoy our little picnic without the crowds of Japan. I remember quickly thrown-together hanami parties in the afternoon or evening with friends and colleagues in Japan, with all kinds of food from sparse sandwiches or pre-made bentos bought from convenience stores, to elaborate barbecues cooked on portable hibachi grills accompanied by beer and sake. Hanami parties in the evening usually wound up being unpredictable and fun, with the drunk salarymen next to you wanting to share their food and try out their English.
In my old residential neighborhood in Tokyo, people would reserve their spots at popular picnic locations by writing their names and desired times on a piece of paper by the cherry tree in question. There are even official blossom forecasts (sakurazensen) by the weather bureau reporting exactly where the trees are in bloom, and where they’ve peaked. My mini version of these cherry blossom reports for San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park follows — this is the week for it! If you have tips on good hanami locations near you, please let us know in comments.
Contents of picnic bento for three (two adults, one preschooler): The top tier holds a variety of onigiri rice balls, some mixed with shrimp-flavored or vegetable-flavored furikake
Morning prep time: 25-30 minutes, using shrimp and chicken salad from Costco’s deli section, and homemade juice gelatin cups that I’d made earlier. What took the most time was making the variety of onigiri rice balls by hand. (Read on for cooking notes, my San Francisco blossom forecast, and an additional preschooler lunch.)
Published by Biggie on April 1st, 2008 tagged SF Bay Area local, bento, fish or seafood, for kids, onigiri or sushi, poultry, rice | 53 Comments »
Egg-wrapped onigiri lunch
I woke up early and decided to see how microwaved thin egg sheets (usuyaki tamago, tutorial here) would work as an alternative to nori seaweed wrappers in fake maki-zushi. (Okay, technically if you don’t use flavored sushi rice it’s just an onigiri rice ball.)
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Mini onigiri rice balls wrapped in a thin egg sheet, mini plum tomatoes, scallop and shrimp cakes (review below), and zucchini with Korean barbecue sauce.
Morning prep time: 18 minutes, which was simply too long for me, even using frozen scallop & shrimp cakes, frozen rice and a frozen egg wrapper that I’d made previously. In the morning I microwaved the rice and egg wrapper (very briefly, on 40% power so as to not actually heat it and make it rubbery), made the onigiri (notes below), and microwaved the zucchini in my microwave mini steamer. (Read on for a review of the scallop and shrimp cakes, packing notes, and cooking notes for the faux makizushi.)
Published by Biggie on March 21st, 2008 tagged bento, fish or seafood, for kids, lactose free, onigiri or sushi, shopping, tutorial or how to | 16 Comments »
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