August 27th Bento Lunch

I know that the majority of my readers are not Canadian, so I'll start with a bit of background. One of our largest suppliers of luncheon meat, called Maple Leaf, had a recent contamination in their products causing an outbreak of listeria. I don't really know anything about listeria other than the facts that this recent outbreak has killed six Canadians, and that it can take up to 70 days for the symptoms of the illness to show itself.

So I know people who have eaten these products within the past two months and they don't know yet whether they're going to get sick, so I guess there's some phone number they're supposed to call and then I don't know what happens after that. So there's an acute feeling of 'awareness' around here. I wouldn't call it worry, we just have it on our minds and see it in the news all the time.

When we heard about it, BF and I sat down and tried to remember any times in the last 70 days that we had eaten processed meat, and to my surprise we couldn't think of a single one. So as you can imagine, it's reaffirmed our decision to eat natural foods whenever we can (of course, had it been a contamination of say, broccoli, we'd be in trouble).

So why am I bringing this up in a blog about bento? As a result of this incident, there was an article in the newspaper that made me pause. It was entitled Panic in the Lunchbox and it talks about the fact that school starts next week and all kinds of parents across the country have no idea what to pack for lunch since sandwiches are out for the next little while. So, I guess I just wanted to say that it makes me sad that a lack of luncheon meat can inspire the use of the word 'panic' in this country. And that I'm tempted to make a list of 100 delicious lunch foods that don't involve sandwiches and anonymously mail it to everyone in the country who packs lunches.

Thanks for listening to (reading?) my rant. Okay, here was today's bento.

The center piece of today's bento lunch was the zucchini dumpling I made (the tutorial is below). I think it's so pretty! On either side there are triangle onigiri, stuffed with the same bison soboro that is in the zucchini.

For meat there are bites of marinated lamb steak that I pan fried. The veggies include steamed asparagus, broccoli and sugar snaps, and julienned carrot fried in sesame oil. For fruit there are some really juicy raspberries, blueberries, something called a damson plum, mango pieces and apple tulips.

BF sent me a message from work that said "This is an amazing tasting and looking bento!" so I think that means it was a success!

Tutorial - Zucchini Dumpling

I got the inspiration for this dumpling from the Iron Chef 2000th dish special. The amazing Hiroyuki Sakai made adorable zucchini dumplings as a part of a larger dish, and ever since I saw them I've been wanting to give my own version it a try.

It turned out pretty and yummy (which is always my goal!) so I wanted to share how I made it.

A friendly warning though: This is pretty time consuming and detailed. I definitely don't recommend trying to put one of these together in the morning before work. I suggest making it the night before and doing the final steaming in the morning.

You will need

- 1 Green zucchini
- 2 Tbsp filling (I used a mixture of rice and bison soboro. The recipe for the soboro is below)
- A big, sharp knife
- Plastic wrap
- A 6" piece of string/twine
- A vegetable steamer

First, cut a slice of zucchini about 3" long and 3/8" thick.
Slice the zucchini in strips as thin as you can. They should be opaque, but flexible. You will need 14 strips.

Cover your workspace with a piece of plastic wrap about 1 foot square. You will be cooking the zucchini in this plastic, so make sure you use a high end brand that won't leach toxins into food (I use Glad).

Select the 7 thinnest zucchini strips and place them horizontally to form a square as shown in the picture. By keeping the peel on the same side of each strip, the end result will have a subtle zigzag pattern.

The next step is to weave in the remaining 7 strips.

First slide in the first vertical strip from the left, alternating between putting it over and under the horizontal strips.

To place the next vertical strip, gently fold back every other horizontal strip and place the vertical strip on top of the remaining strips as shown. Fold the horizontal strips back to their original position and gently push the second vertical strip so that it is flush with the first.

Repeat with the remaining vertical strips until you have a woven square. The last vertical strip might look a bit messy because of differences in the lengths of the horizontal strips, but don't worry, it will look fine in the end.

Roll filling into a ball and place in the middle of the square.

Gently wrap the sides of the square around the filling. Start by picking up opposite corners of the plastic wrap and pulling them together, then do the same with the remaining two corners. The four corners of the zucchini should just barely touch at the top of the filling. If they don't quite touch, try removing some filling. If they overlap, add a little more filling.

Once all four corners are touching, gently press in the sides, trying to flatten as much possible.

Tightly twist the plastic wrap to seal the package and secure with string as shown.

Place in steamer for 7 minutes.

Remove from steamer and allow to cool enough so that you can remove the plastic wrap without burning yourself. To remove the wrap, cut off the knot and gently pull back the plastic wrap. If you pull too hard, it may displace parts of the zucchini.

Here's a picture of the underside of the dumpling after it's been cooked.

Flip it over and here is the top of this gorgeous dumpling!

The bento lunch that I used this in can be seen here.

Here is the recipe for the bison that I mixed with rice for the filling.

Recipe: Bison Soboro

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb ground bison (May substitute beef or pork)
• 2 Tbsp sake
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp mirin
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger

Place ground bison in a frying pan on medium heat and separate into small pieces. When pan is hot, add remaining ingredients. Cook until the bison is fully browned and most of the liquid has evaporated. Drain off any remaining liquid.

Can be used as a filling for dumplings or onigiri, or as a topping for a donburi.

July 7th Bento

We went to the grocery store yesterday as usual. BF went to the meat counter and ordered some stuff. As we walked away, I asked "What do you plan to do with that ground bison?"

He replied "Give it to you to put in a bento!"

Of course.

Seeing as how this was the first I'd heard that people even eat bison, I didn't know what to do with it. Luckily I know how to use Google.

And that is how we ended up having buffaloaf for lunch.
I followed the recipe at the link above. The only changes I made were to divide it in four and use a quail egg instead of a regular egg (because it's easier than measuring a quarter of an egg). This is the first time in my life I've ever made meatloaf. I don't think I've even eaten meatloaf since I was a kid. It turned out much better than I expected. I actually prefer bison to beef as it turns out.

The other interesting component to this bento is a Vietnamese dumpling called bahn khuc. The recipe is from my Vietnamese cookbook (listed in the carousel in the left column of my blog). The basic idea is that the dumpling dough is made of spinach puree and glutinous rice flour. The filling is ground pork, mung bean paste and shallots. It's then rolled in uncooked rice and steamed for about 20 minutes until the rice is cooked (I did all of this the night before and then put it straight in the bento from the fridge in the morning).

These were a whole lot of work, although I suspect it would have been faster if I had the mung bean paste already prepared, waiting in the freezer (it takes two hours to soak the beans). And for how much work they were, the taste was only so-so, so I don't think I'll make them again. The consistency was similar to a daifuku, which didn't carry over well to a dumpling in my opinion. BF wasn't so keen on them either. I really wanted to like this recipe because I thought it was a cool idea with lots of healthy ingredients, but alas, it was not to be.

For additional carbs, I included two heart shaped red bean onigiri.

For veggies there is some steamed red swiss chard (I really liked this last time so I bought another bunch this weekend), broccoli, asparagus, sugar snaps, raw carrot and daikon flowers and yellow zucchini.

For fruit there is half a fig, a strawberry that I thought was adorable, some fresh pineapple chunks, blueberries, raspberries and a cherry.

Sometimes my lunches take even me by surprise. I never would have guessed bison and mung!