September 2nd Bento Lunch & Poached Tamarillo Recipe

BF and I found an amazing Thai restaurant this weekend. It was so good we went two days in a row! (For my Halifax readers, check out Chabaa Thai on Queen St., near the Italian Market).

We had leftovers that we brought home, so when I was making bento this morning, I asked BF, "Do you want curry or pad Thai in your bento?"

His response: "Can't I have both?"

Sure, why not?

On the left side of the divider is a foil cup of masaman beef curry from the restaurant, made with beef, sweet potato chunks and onions. It is phenomenal, it's the first time I've ever tasted beef that literally melts in your mouth, it's so soft. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, learning to make an amazing masaman curry is near the top of my ever-changing list of cooking goals at the moment.

Masaman curry paste is used in Thai cooking, but it actually contains a lot of Indian flavours like cinnamon and cardamom, so it's a very different taste from green or red curry paste. It's definitely my new favorite.

Surrounding the curry, we have some rice. I used long grain white rice instead of the short grain that I usually use, since that is what is traditionally served with Thai food. There are a couple of steamed zucchini acorns on top of the rice for decoration.


On the right hand side of the divider, there is a foil cup of pad Thai, along with some steamed broccoli and asparagus, as well as boiled edamame. For fruit there are blueberries and poached tamarillo (recipe given below), and for dessert there is a daifuku filled with taro jam. Without a doubt, this is the softest mochi I've ever eaten, it's not chewy at all. I don't know the brand name because it's written in Japanese, so here's a picture of the box that it comes in. If you see it at the store, I definitely recommend picking it up. They make lots of different flavours, which I can't wait to try.


This morning I made poached tamarillo. It takes longer than most bento foods should (about 20 minutes) so I don't recommend this when you're in a hurry, but it's has a really interesting flavour if you have the time to make it. You can also make this the night before and refrigerate. The sourness of the tamarillo contrasts with the sweetness of the syrup and the texture of the fruit is incredibly smooth, smoother than any other fruit I can think of. It's really delicious, but I find the flavour is so powerful that I can only eat a few bites of it, which is why I think it's a perfect bento food.

I thought I would share the recipe, since when I first saw a tamarillo I had no idea what to do with it, so I'm guessing that there are lots of other people in the same boat.

Recipe: Poached Tamarillo with Cherry Syrup

Ingredients:

• Tamarillo
• Sugar
• Water
• Slice of Orange Peel
• Cherry Brandy

Quantities are easily adjusted depending on how many tamarillos you wish to poach.

1. Blanch the tamarillo by plunging it into boiling water for 10 seconds and then plunging into ice water for 10 seconds. Remove the peel (it should come off easily now).

2. Combine 1 part sugar to two parts of water and bring to a boil. For one tamarillo, I use 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup water and boil in the smallest pot I have so that it covers the tamarillo.

3. Reduce heat to a simmer and add tamarillo and a slice of orange rind (If you don't have orange rind, you can add orange extract at the same time as the cherry brandy). Poach for 6 minutes if it is very ripe, or 8 minutes if it is not. If the liquid doesn't entirely cover the tamarillo, poach with the pot covered and turn the tamarillo over halfway through cooking.

4. If you're not in a hurry, allow the tamarillo to cool in the syrup, and then remove the tamarillo before proceeding to the next step. If you're like me and are always in a hurry, place the tamarillo and half of the liquid in a bowl, and cover it so that the tamarillo doesn't lose moisture as it cools. Place the pot containing the other half of the liquid back on the stove.

5. Add 1 1/2 Tbsp cherry brandy per cup of water you originally used in the syrup to the liquid in the pot.

5. Boil it down for 7 to 10 minutes until you have a syrup of the consistency you like. I like a light syrup, but if you prefer a heavy syrup, boil it for longer.

6. Allow the syrup to cool.

7. Slice tamarillo and put it in a small container for your bento. Pour syrup over it.

July 19th Bento Lunches

I've been pretty sick all week, so I haven't spent too much time in the kitchen. That's why I haven't been posting. Today I've completely lost my voice so I guess I'll be sick for a while yet :P

All I've really done this week was to make a couple of snack bentos, and I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream that disappeared faster than I could take a picture of them.

BF and my sister's bf scuba dive together mostly every week, and this week my sister and I went with them (to hang out and watch, not to dive). I wasn't going to make bentos because I still wasn't feeling well, but then at the last minute I changed my mind.

So I rushed together four bento lunches with zero prep work or planning. They're messy and the picture isn't great because everything was so rushed. I'm more posting it because I'm just impressed with myself that I pulled this off. Making four bento lunches is a tonne of work as it turns out.
They're mainly veggie because we also had a barbecue so we cooked meat on that, plus my sister is a vegetarian so her bento didn't have any meat at all (bottom right).

In each bento there are four bites of inside out chicken teriyaki sushi and four pieces of avocado maki made with soy wrapper instead of nori. BF gave me a lot of help making the sushi to save time. There are two pork shu mai 'burgers' (leek dumplings for my sister. Thank goodness for my well stocked freezer!). For added protein there is a quail egg and two bites of cheese in each.

For veggies there are sesame fried carrots, steamed miso spinach, boiled edamame and sweet potato flowers, steamed asparagus, broccoli and snow peas, and some homemade daikon pickles.

For fruit there are nectarine bites, cherries, blueberries and strawberries.

I thought it would be really challenging to fill so much space but I actually ended up with more food than I could fit in them. I only wish I had more time to pretty them up.

June 26th Bento

I have not been this excited about bento rice since I found those banana leaves and made lemper. Omg, it was so delicious today.

Last night BF was helping a friend move, so I suggested we go for some late night sushi after he got home. So I was making onigiri, thinking about the restaurant, and I started thinking about this dessert sushi I had there one time. It was made with mamenori soy paper, and it didn't stick together very well. I remember thinking that if a sushi chef can't get it to stick together, what chance did I have?

Then I had an epiphany. I would made dessert sushi for today's bento and to get it to stick together, I would brush the last couple of inches of mamenori with warmed up honey.

Worked like a charm!

The sushi is made with short grain white rice seasoned with a syrup I made by microwaving 2 Tbsp of lime juice and then mixing in 3/4 Tbsp sugar. It's filled with strawberry and kiwi slices, wrapped in sesame seed mamenori and sprinkled with a little ginger. When I cut it up this morning and saw how pretty it was, I wished I had made two rolls. At least I'll know for next time.

The meat is chicken cordon bleu (premade from the butcher, I just cooked it last night). I baked a couple of slices of acorn squash with it, and then mashed them with a little butter. It's in the little cup, sprinkled with a smidge of allspice and topped with a tiny tomato. I had never cooked squash before, but it was yummy, I'll make it again.

I steamed some more of the beet greens, some asparagus and snow peas. The edamame and sweet potato butterflies were boiled for 5 minutes.

For fruit, there are some apple hearts, cherries, raspberries and blueberries.

I thought this bento was especially delcious.

I have an interesting plan for some baking tonight. If it turns out the way I'm hoping, I'll post pics later!

June 23rd Snack Bentos

My apologies for the lack of posts. I was on vacation last week and I didn't make a single bento. I truly meant to make bento lunches for BF all week but somehow I managed to sleep in every single day. And I ended up not having time to go for groceries over the weekend, so this morning when I got up to make bento I was pretty short on options and ingredients. Which is how we ended up with snack bentos instead of bento lunches.
I grabbed some onigiris from the fridge and put some faces on them. There are gyoza from a batch I made this weekend and a boiled quail egg for some added protein. For veggies there are edamame (frozen), sweet potato sakuras (I love sweet potatos, they last forever), the last two stalks of asparagus and some sugar snaps. I used a few black sesame seeds to decorate the sakuras and I think they turned out really cute. For fruit there are just two cherries in each and a few blueberries.
I used my Cinnamoroll snack bento box and BF used his blue polka dot snack bento box. From the picture it looks like mine is much larger, but they're actually about the same size, BF's is just deeper. I kind of enjoy the fact that they are different shapes because I like the mental exercise of figuring out two different layouts. It's a good little puzzle to help me wake up in the morning.

We managed to get out for groceries tonight, so it should be back to business as usual. My favorite thing that we picked up was the tiniest bunch of vine tomatoes that I have ever seen in my life. They are so small!! And so pretty still on the vine. I put a quarter next to them so you can get a feel for the size. In the back of the bunch there is the tiniest one of all, it's my favorite.

June 3rd Bento

About a month ago, I tried to make a symmetric bento with little success. Today I pulled it off and I didn't even plan to!

Today's theme was Bunnies in Love
We have two bunny onigiri with a ground chicken/hoisin sauce filling and sesame seed eyes. The heart is made of rolled omelette (tamagoyaki) and steamed spinach. There are three pork shu mai (I had to cut one in half and stack it to make it fit) and some silly pasta pieces (tossed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil). The veggies are broccoli, edamame skewers, snow peas and asparagus. The fruit was mostly berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries and can you spot the blackberries?) with a couple slices of kumquat.

For dessert, I tried something new and exciting - dessert sushi! Basically, I made it like regular sushi, but with a lot of substitutions. Instead of normal rice, I used coconut rice. I used lime juice and sugar instead of sushi vinegar and soy paper (mamenori) instead of nori. The filling is peach slices sprinkled with ginger.

I had a hard time getting it to stick together (mamenori is not very sticky to begin with and the coconut rice made it even harder to work with). BF had the brilliant idea to tie it closed with strips peeled from a stalk of rhubarb and it worked perfectly. I tied six strings around it, one to hold together each piece once it was cut.
It held up perfectly in the bento and was absolutely delicious. There were so many different flavours going on in each bite, I will definitely make this again!

The 11 Minute Snack Bento

A lot of times I sleep in or whatever and think I don't have time to make bento, but really, there's no excuse because bento making takes me as long as I have. If I have 5 minutes, it takes 5 minutes, and if I have 40 minutes, it takes 40. The trick is to multitask. Most mornings I have at least 3 out of 4 burners going on the stove, plus something in the microwave, and I'm chopping something up at the same time.

This morning I had 11 minutes. Here's a snack bento that I put together.
And here's how:

1. Boil some water in a kettle. While it's heating, cut out some flowers out of a slice or two of sweet potato. Heat some canola oil in another frying pan and a little water in another pot or steamer. Pour the water you just boiled into a small pot.

2. Add edamame and sweet potato to the boiling pot of water. Remove and strain after six minutes.

3. While that's going, throw some frozen pork shumai in the pan with oil. Periodically flip and smoosh with a spatula until cooked through.

4. Now you've got two things cooking. Slice up two stalks of asparagus, a couple of broccoli florets and two sugar snaps. Put the asparagus and broccoli in the steamer for 3 minutes. Add the sugar snaps and steam for two more.

5. Now you've got three things going. Heat a frozen onigiri in the microwave, about 20-25 seconds on each side.

6. Pour some tonkatsu sauce (or whatever your favorite dipping sauce is for pork) in a small container.

7. Slice up a strawberry.

8. Everything should be ready by now! Place onigiri in the bottom right of the left compartment. Place shumai above the onigiri and asparagus to fill in the gap on the left. Slice sugar snaps in half and tuck into the gaps. Cover the rice with edamame and position sweet potato flowers on top of it.

9. Place sauce container in the top left of the right hand compartment. Cover it with strawberry slices. Place any remaining edamame below the strawberryt. Place broccoli florets beneath the strawberry, and two cherries below that (on top of the edamame). Fill any gaps with blueberries.

10. Rush out the door!

So that's how I do it. And at 3:30 this afternoon when I was starving because lunch was hours ago, I had something delicious and healthy to snack on. It's a good thing too, because there was an open box of donuts in the office!

May 12th Bento

BF is taking a couple of days off work, so you get to see my bento instead of his today and tomorrow!

I tried out my new nori punches and mini onigiri molds today.

On the bottom there are three onigiri. The elephant is coloured with purple yam powder mixed with vinegar, the pink heart is a coconut onigiri from the batch in the freezer and the bunny is plain with salt. None of them are filled. There are a few lamb bites in there (from a skewer from this weekend's barbecue), asparagus, broccoli and edamame.

On the top there are three gyoza (I made another batch this weekend, we go through it like crazy!), a boiled quail egg, more edamame and broccoli, star shaped coconut onigiri, persimmon bites, a fried plantain flower, strawberries and blueberries.

May 1st Bento

I feel like the individual components of today's bento were all excellent, but somehow, it just didn't come together. Well, here it is:

The main components are slices of stuffed turkey roll (premade from the butcher), lotus seed paste filled onigiri, home made spanikopita (under the ducks), and a small container of eggplant braised in a sweet miso sauce.

I had half a sweet potato I wanted to use up, so I shaped some into flowers and made a couple of turtles (with nori). The ducks are fried plantain. There is some edamame hiding in the top left corner, and the regular broccoli, asparagus and snow peas.

Fruit is persimmons, strawberries and blueberries, dessert is a truffle.