Just Bento - all about bento box meals!

Guy Does Bento no. 7: Chicken karaage bento

maki — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:27:27 +0000

The Guy Does Bento is back! This is one he made just for himself on a day I was feeling too sick to eat much of anything. Now that I am slowly getting my appetite back, just looking at it makes my mouth water.

The bento features two of our favorite bento items: Chicken Karaage (leftovers - he made them himself the night before) and 1-egg tamagoyaki. The tamagoyaki here turned out a bit on the brown side, but The Guy says it was still very good. He’s filled out the rest of the bento with boiled broccoli and plain rice. He put a a bit of peeled broccoli stalk on top of the rice to add color. Notice he put in only one section’s worth of rice, packed in a bit loosely, to compensate a bit for the fried chicken. Overall this bento is probably around 700 calories, even though he did smoosh in as many pieces of chicken as he could. (There’s a couple of pieces tucked under the tamagoyaki too!)

Here’s a dramatic closeup.

The box used is the LunchBots Quad. The Guy likes bento boxes with compartments, like this one and the Idea box (the latter one may be his favorite of them all) because it helps him to organize the food without thinking about it too much.

Tip: To keep chicken karaage as crispy as possible in a bento box, make sure it, and any other food packed in the box, has cooled down completely before you close the lid. The rice in particular needs to be completely cooled, to room temperature or less, otherwise the condensation from it will make your chicken a bit soggy. It will still taste good though! That’s the beauty of karaage over other deep fried chicken methods.

Check out the rest of the Guy Does Bento series!

Sweet, sour and salty 'instant' radish pickles

maki — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:22:44 +0000

[While I’m still getting back up to speed, please enjoy this recipe for ‘instant’ pickled radishes, great in any bento or in a salad. Originally published in May 2009. It’s kind of funny to re-read this post and realize we were still waffling about buying a house in France or not. I guess we did, after all!]

While radishes are available year-round, spring seems to be the perfect time to enjoy their crisp, peppery crunchiness. They are also really pretty. I love them just as-is, perhaps with a little salt, or sliced up in salads, but I’ve also been playing around with various formulas to make instant pickles or ichiyazuke (一夜漬け, or ‘overnight pickles’) with them. One reason is that radishes are dirt cheap right now at the markets in the Provence where ~~I’ve settled for the summer~~ actually gone and bought a house (aka the moneypit): 2 euros for 3 huge bundles. I can never resist a produce bargain.

Radishes are not traditional Japanese vegetables, but flavor wise they are close to daikon radish as well as to kabu (turnip). Taking my cue from traditional daikon pickles, I pickled the radishes in a sour-sweet-salty mixture of rice vinegar, ume vinegar and another product of spring, strawberry syrup.

Ume vinegar, or ume-su (梅酢), also sometimes called ume seasoning, is a byproduct of making umeboshi (pickled plums). Its sourness comes from the ume plums, the bright red color from the red shiso leaves that are pickled along with the ume, and the saltiness comes from the salt used in the pickling process. Ume vinegar is available at well-stocked Japanese grocery stores as well as some natural food stores. The bottle here came from Workshop Issé in Paris, and is delicious.

Strawberry syrup is simply made by combining an equal amount of ripe strawberries and sugar, perhaps with a little lemon juice to enhance the sourness, crushing the strawberries and boiling it a bit. This recipe on Recipe Bazaar would work well. You could also use bottled strawberry syrup instead, which is what I did actually. You could use honey instead of the strawberry syrup, though the extra red really boosts the colors of the pickled radish.

Recipe: Sweet-Sour Instant radish pickles

Time required: About 5-10 minutes to wash and prep the radishes and put them in the pickling mix. Several hours to let them ‘mature’ in the refrigerator.

For about 20 to 30 radishes, depending on how big they are:

1 cup rice vinegar
3/4 cup ume vinegar
1/4 cup strawberry syrup or honey

Combine the liquids well. (If you need more, increase the amounts at the same proportions: 4 parts vinegar, 3 parts ume vinegar, and 1 part sweetener.)

Cut the green leaves off the radishes and reserve for another recipe. Trim each radish, taking off the long hairy root part and most or all of the green part. If the radishes are small, leave them whole, otherwise cut them into halves or quarters.

Put the radishes in a non-reactive container (not aluminum or iron) and cover with the pickling liquid. Cover well and let rest in the refrigerator. They will be ready to eat the next day, and will keep in the refrigerator for about a week before the radishes get a bit too limp, though they should still be safe to eat for another week. Please note that these are ‘instant’ style pickles (see more about Japanese instant pickles or ‘sokusekizuke’) and do need to kept refrigerated, and not kept for more than 2 weeks at most.

The pickling liquid can be used as a dressing base, although as the radishes stay in there longer the liquid does take on a radish-y odor.

These pickles are great to tuck into the side of a bento. They are also good scattered on top of sushi rice as chirashizushi (I’ll try to post a picture soon!). They are good to just snack on too.

What to do with the leaves?

Don’t just throw out the radish leaves - they’re packed with nutrition! I like to turn them into furikake - delicious and really good for you too! This radish leaf pesto on Chocolate and Zucchini also sounds intriguing.

More pickles

Feeling a bit better ^_^

maki — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:41:53 +0000

My radiation therapy finally came to an end on Friday. I’m already feeling a bit better and my appetite is coming back gradually. I can’t tell you how relieved I am about that, because for a while there I was afraid that I’d never regain my appetite, that the diarrhea would go on forever, and that writing about food would be too difficult. But anyway, I am gearing up to commence posting here - Just Bento has gotten even more neglected than Just Hungry, I know. I may still be a bit slow, since I am not quite up to cooking yet, but I’m poking The Guy for more bentos and such. Thank you for your patience!

Here’s a sneak preview of a product review I should have up shortly.

(If you can’t wait, take a look around the All Things For Sale site….^_^)

Please bear with me...

maki — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:16:53 +0000

For anyone who has been wondering about the lack of new posts here, this over on Just Hungry should explain things. I'm really hoping to feel well enough to write with pleasure about food, let alone bentos, soon. In the meantime, especially if you are new to the site, please take a look through the archives - there's a lot here! Thank you for your patience.

Bento box review: The all-stainless steel LunchBots Quad

maki — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:56:31 +0000

As I have written here before, I am a big fan of the LunchBots line of all-stainless steel bento boxes. (They actually call them ‘food containers’, but they are a great size for bentos.) Here’s an in-depth look at one of the latest offerings, the LunchBots Quad, as well as some of the pros and cons of the LunchBots boxes in general.

Here’s how the LunchBots Quad looks when it comes to you. The lid is available in three tasteful colors: lime green as shown here, sky blue and all-stainless (a shinier stainless than the box itself), all sporting the LunchBots logo. The box feels very solid and durable. I’ve owned another LunchBots box for about 4 years now, and after many uses it looks as good as new.

The Quad unit has for evenly divided units. The dividers are fixed in place. The total capacity of the box is about 700ml, a great size for a lot of people. Two-part Duos and three-part Trios are also available on their site.

What makes the LunchBots containers different from other stainless steel bento boxes is that they are totally plastic or silicon free. have leakproof liners around their edges. The Lids are quite tight-fitting.

As an experiment, I tried filling the box to the brim with water that I colored a bit by adding some soy sauce. If you turn the box upside down, the water does start to leak out immediately, showing that it is not leakproof.

And if you turn it sideways, it definitely does leak. So, you should not use the LunchBots boxes for very liquid food like stew, or food that has a lot of sauce.

Another slightly annoying problem that is shared by all metal boxes: if you have very hard water, as we do have here, water stains will show up very quickly on the shiny surface. The solution to this is to try to dry off your stainless steel containers as soon as they are washed, and to occasionally give them a wipe with vinegar.

Here’s the Quad in action. The 4 equal compartments make packing food quite easy. Clockwise from top left I’ve packed some steamed broccoli and a cherry tomato, some Pan Fried Lemon Chicken Nuggets (or as some readers who’ve tried and loved them call them, “Maki Nuggets” ^_^); tri-color bell peppers simply sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, and some plain rice. That’s two vegetable compartments, one protein and one carb. A pretty good balance for someone watching their weight, like me! Note that I’ve chosen foods are not likely to leak. Ther was some moisture around the sauteed bell peppers that came out of them as they cooked, but I drained it off as I packed them into the compartment.

The green things decorating the top of the rice are thin slices of broccoli stalk, that I just steamed together with the broccoli florets. I think they look like little abstract flowers.

Best Uses, Pros and Cons

The LunchBots containers are very attractive and well made, and are totally plastic or silicon free. If you are concerned about the amount of plastics in our environment, and want to stay away from them for your lunch containers, LunchBots are a great solution.

Pros:

All-stainless steel means they should last for a long time with proper care, and won’t break if you drop them (though they may dent a bit).
The base is dishwasher safe (handwashing is recommended for the lid)
Plastic-free
Attractive design
Good quality

Cons:

No plastic/silicone sealing elements means they will leak; not suitable for watery or sauce-y foods
Not microwave-safe
Multiple colors, but just one design

Special discount for JustBento readers!

LunchBots has kindly offered a 10% discount and free shipping to the U.S. and Canada to JustBento readers! This offer is valid for one week from the time of this review. Just order from the LunchBots and use the coupon code JUSTBENTO . LunchBots containers are also available on Amazon.com and Amazon UK (Amazon UK doesn’t have the Quad yet, but the Duo and Trio are available).

(Disclosure: This product was supplied to JustBento by LunchBots for review. I was not compensated in any way for the review, and the opinions expressed are my own.)

Bento box review: Atsuben Kun heats up your lunch

maki — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:02:48 +0000

As I have said often on these pages, bentos are usually filled with food that is supposed to taste good at room temperature. But there’s no denying that sometimes we want our lunch to be hot, or at least warm. There are various ways to make sure this happens of course, from using a microwave (if you have access to one) or carrying your lunch in a thermal lunch jar and/or an insulated bag. The Atsuben Kun bento box takes the warm bento lunch a step further: it actually heats up your bento within the box itself.

From the outside, the Atsuben Kun looks like a regular bento box. It’s very sleek, and the white plastic feels very nice.

The logo is very cute - the “u” of At(s)uben is a litle steamy pot. (The “atsu” or “atu” part of the name means hot,”ben” is short for bento, and “kun” is just an informal, affectionate suffix for a name, usually used when addressing a young man or boy.)

The Atsuben Kun reveals its secret when you look at the base. It has power input…

…for the bottom section, which contains a ceramic heater, similar to the ones you see in space heaters. (The warning label in Japanese says to not touch it when it’s plugged in or while it’s still hot.)

Here’s what’s in the the Atsuben Kun package. It looks like a three-tier box from the outside but it’s actually two-tier box with the bottom tier being the heater. The top compartment has a leak-resistant flexible plastic lid. There’s also a power supply for Japanese electric outlets.

The power supply has 100/110V-220/240V / 50-60Hz input and 3Amp / 8V output, so you should be able to use it just about anywhere in the world. You can use Japanese plugs as-in most U.S. outlets, though if you are not sure you can get an adapter plug. In Europe and many other places you will need an adapter plug, which is not included (the one shown in the pic is for France) - they are cheap and easy to get at any electronics store. You can also order the Atsuben Kun with a cigarette lighter car power plug instead.

I tested how well this thing worked with a real bento! I filled it up with fairly standard (for me) bento foods: rice in the bottom section with a little furikake on top, and the other foods in the top compartment (Miso marinated pork, Easy sugarfree carrot kinpira, some steamed broccoli to fill the gaps, and tamagoyaki). I put the rice in the bottom compartment because I wanted it to get the warmest. Then, I put the 2 sections filled with food in the refrigerator for about 8 hours. This was to simulate a typical scenario where I can see this bento box being used - you make the bento and fill it up the night before, pack it with an ice pack in the morning (in an insulated bag to really keep things cool) and heat it up before lunch.

I re-assembled the Atsuben Kun and plugged him in, and set my timer for 70 minutes as per the Japanese instructions.

So did it heat up from refrigerator-cold to hot in 70 minutes? Not quite. It was warm enough to be pleasant, but not hot. Probably if you heated it up from room temperature 70 minutes would be enough. Anyway, no big deal - I gave it another 20 minutes.

After the additional 20 minutes, the rice in the bottom compartment was actually hot! It almost tasted like freshly cooked rice. The top compartment doesn’t really get hot since it is not in direct contact with the heating element, just warmed up a bit from the little steam rising from the food in the bottom compartment. But that’s enough really to have a warm-bento experience. I really enjoyed it!

Best uses, and pros and cons

I think this bento box is great for people who don’t have access to a microwave at lunchtime, but still want a warm lunch experience. With the cigarette lighter power plug, you could even heat up your bento on the go! (Personally I think I’d order the box with the cigarette lighter plug and get the house-current one separately, if I needed to use this in my car.) It doesn’t draw much power (the instructions say it consumes about .6 yen per use - and electricity in Japan is expensive), and is quite unobstrusive.

Pros:

Enables you to have a warm lunch without access to a microwave
The food in the bottom compartment gets really hot
Compact and relatively lightweight, despite the heating element
Uses very little energy
The food container parts are dishwasher safe (Handwashing recommended for the outer lid; the heating plate element should only be wiped clean)
Sleek, cool design; feels very well made and durable
Ups your geek factor!

Cons:

Pricey (5700 yen, or about about US $70 / €53 - use the handy currency converter on the order page for the current price. Gotta love those exchange rate fluctuations!)
A bit heavier/bulkier than a regular bento box of that size because of the heating element, though still very portable
On the small side (580ml total capacity; good if you’re doing portion control though)
Only the bottom compartment gets really hot; the top compartment gets lukewarm
Takes a bit of preplanning so your bento is as hot as you need it to be by lunchtime (about 70 minutes from room temperature; add 10-20 minutes if your bento is refrigerator cold)

Tips

Remember to always put the food you want to be really hot in the bottom compartment. In the Japanese video posted on the product page, they show it being used by putting curry stew in the bottom compartment and rice on the top.
The top compartment does heat up a little bit, so any food you want to keep cool like a side salad or fruit should be packed in a separate container.
Use a timer as I did. There’s no automatic shutoff.
Eating utensils are not included, so add your own.
To carry the Atsuben Kun, I’d recommend using a furoshiki cloth (here’s how to make your own; you can also use any square cloth, like a bandanna) or an elastic bento belt to, hold all those layers plus the lid together. The Atsuben Kun doesn’t come with its own belt, so use one you already have from another box, make your own from wide elastic, or order one here.

To sum up: I think this is a very cool box that is sure to draw comments at the office. If you yearn after a hot bento at lunchtime, especially if you like making your bento the night before and sticking it in the fridge, this may be just the box for you.

The Atsuben Kun is available from Bento&co.

(Disclosure: This product was supplied to JustBento by the vendor for review. I was not compensated in any way for the review, and the opinions expressed are my own.)

(I have a whole bunch of other cool bento product reviews coming up. Stay tuned ^_^!)

Digging out from under the mess

maki — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:12:44 +0000

In case you don’t follow the sister site, Just Hungry, last week we got home from attending my father’s memorial service in New York to find out we had been burgled in our absence. Among other things, they took most of our ‘temporary’ kitchen equipment (we are still in the middle of renovations…) including the working hotplate, the microwave oven (which was also a convection oven…so handy), not to mention my food processor, KitchenAid mixer, even my stick blender.

As for my bento supplies…I had them stored in several plastic containers, all organized…and they overturned many of those containers and threw the contents all over the floor. I would have taken pictures, but I was too upset. Luckily, they only broke one box, though they did take the 2 thermal mugs that look like camera lenses (I had one of each, the Nikon and the Canon) - I guess they were so realistic they thought they were actually lenses! (Of course they took the one camera we’d left behind…they took most electronic stuff, even our bathroom exhaust fan. Ugh.)

Anyway, I am getting myself back together again. I have to figure out how I’m going to cook anything, let alone make bentos. They left the kitchen area in a mess too…they even tossed out stuff from the refrigerator and just left the food on the floor to rot). They did leave my Japanese-brand rice cooker behind thankfully, and we have been doing some cooking in there. (Polenta in the rice cooker totally works.) In the meantime though, I have some exciting products to review in the next couple of weeks (none of the products got pawed over by the burglars thankfully, because I had them with me in my suitcase to familiarize myself with them).

So, I am semi-back I guess…and thank you for your patience. In the meantime, here’s a bento my mom made - just some leftover fried chicken, leftover broccoli, and rice (in this case, osekihan or red rice and beans, also leftovers). I’m not sure about the cold French fries, but otherwise it looks great! She said she’s been packing bentos for herself recently too, because she hurt her leg and doesn’t want to spend extra time in the kitchen. She just packs one up after breakfast in the morning and she’s all set until dinnertime.

I will be getting back to bento-making very soon too. Fingers crossed.

Beef and vegetable rolls (Yasai no nikumaki)

maki — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:25:15 +0000

Yasai no nikumaki, or vegetables wrapped in thinly sliced meat, (niku means meat and maki means wrap or roll) is a standby item for bentos in Japan see an example here). They are easy to eat, and the cut sides are colorful and pretty. I haven’t given you a recipe for nikumaki so far though on this site because a critical element, very thinly and evenly cut slices of pork (the usual meat used) or beef, is just not easily available in the U.S. or most areas of Europe. If you live near an Asian market you have a better chance of getting a suitable cut - but I know, many readers don’t have easy access to such markets.

Here is a version that uses a cut of beef that you can get more easily, at least in the U.S. - cheesesteak beef. Philly cheesesteak beef is very thinly cut sirloin or similar quality meat, just as is used in Japanese sukiyaki, and that works great for nikumaki. Trader Joe’s sells something called shaved beef steak which works quite well, and is fairly affordable too. Here’s the pack I used to make this recipe. 1.08 pounds for $7.71 is not too bad, considering you get 6 to 8 rolls or portions out of it.

So, let’s make nikumaki!

Recipe: Yasai no Nikumaki (Vegetables wrapped in thinly sliced meat)

Makes 6 to 8 rolls

450g / 1 lb very thinly cut beef sirloin such as cheesesteak beef (see notes about meat alternatives)
thinly sliced strips of vegetables - here I’ve used green, red, yellow and orange bell peppers (see notes about vegetable alternatives)
salt and pepper
4 Tbs. cornstarch (approximate) or plain white flour
1 Tbs. cooking oil
one of the following sauce alternatives

Sauce A: Classic Japanese

2 Tbs. dark soy sauce
1 Tbs. mirin
1 Tbs. sake
2 tsp. sugar
1 Tbs. water

Sauce B: Soy and pomegranate juice

This is the one I’ve used in the photos. It has a savory-sweet-tart taste.

2 Tbs. dark soy sauce
3 Tbs. 100% pomegranate juice
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. sugar

Sauce C: Barbeque-y

2 Tbs. ketchup
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs. water
a few drops of Tabasco (optional)

Prep the vegetables by cutting them into long, even thin strips. Here I have used multicolored bell peppers. To get long strips out of peppers, try cutting of the tops and bottoms the cutting them in half lengthwise, then turning the halves 90 degrees, flattening them a bit and cutting the strips out in the horizontal direction of the peppers.

Heat up some water in a pan and toss in the vegetable strips. Blanch them until crisp-tender. For the bell peppers that just takes about 3 minutes. Drain and let cool.

If you’re using the Trader Joe’s ‘shaved beef steak’ or similar, this part is a bit tricky since the bits of beef are rather scraggly.

The key is to lay out the bits of thin beef in a fairly even layer, leaving no gaping holes, so you end up with something that looks like one piece of beef, like so. If you have more uniformly shaped slices just lay down one or two slices.

Sprinkle very lightly with salt and pepper (don’t overdo it - remember you’ll be adding a savory sauce later) then a bit of cornstarch. The cornstarch will help to hold the meat together.

Now, lay some strips of your precooked vegetable on one end.

Start rolling up the beef around the vegetables as tightly as possible, tucking in any straggly ends as you go (a bit tricky, again, with that TJ’s beef, but it can be managed).

Keep rolling tightly…it helps to pull a bit on the unwrapped end of beef with one hand as you wrap with the other.

End the wrapping with the end bits on the bottom. Now, some directions for nikumaki say you should poke the roll through with a toothpick to hold it together, but I don’t find this necessary as long as you manage to wrap the meat quite tightly, and you follow the cooking instructions that follow.

Coat the surface of the roll lightly in more cornstarch. Again, this helps to keep the roll together and also thickens the sauce a bit.

(Not pictured) Mix the sauce mix of your choice in a small bowl, and have ready to go next to your cooktop.

Heat up a frying pan with the cooking oil over medium-high heat. Put the rolls in seam side down This is important - if you start with the seam sides up the rolls will fall apart. Put the rolls in in batches if needed - you should have plenty of space around them so you can turn them easily. (I did mine in 2 batches.) Cook the rolls until the seam side is browned and sealed.

Turn the rolls and brown them on all sides. Looks yummy already!

Add the prepared sauce mix to the pan - careful, the pan may spit at you a bit. Turn the rolls around in the sauce a few times so the sauce coats them. Keep cooking until the moisture in the sauce mix has almost evaporated and the sauce is quite sticky.

Take the rolls out of the pan, and let cool.

You can use the rolls whole like this of course and they still look good.

Or, cut them to reveal the mosaic-like cut surface. My slices here are a bit shaggy (I blame this again on that TJ steak) but not too bad. Allow 1 to 2 rolls per bento.

Tip: Chop up the scraggly end bits of the rolls and hide them under your cut rolls!

Freezing

You can freeze nikumaki very successfully. Wrap each uncut roll in plastic wrap, then put the rolls in a freezer bag or container. They’ll be good in the freezer for a month. Take them out and transfer them to the refrigerator the day before you need them, and slice them through while still half-frozen. That will give you very neat cuts.

Meat alternatives for nikumaki

The meat really has to be paper thin, not escalope-thin.

As mentioned above, you can find very pre-packaged, thinly sliced pork or beef at most Asian (Korean, Japanee, Chinese) grocery stores.

If using beef, you do need to use a quick-cooking cut like sirloin or filet. Ask your butcher if he/she can slice the meat very thinly for you, or try it on your own with a half-frozen piece of meat.

Raw meat is preferred, since thinly sliced precooked meat such as ham may not stick together properly. See ham negimayaki, which is made with very thinly sliced ham. Cured, uncooked ham like proscuitto will work better, though you will have to compensate for the saltiness.

I would not recommend using chicken or turkey meat since these meats may get too dry.

Vegetable alternatives

You can wrap all kinds of vegetables in the meat. The key is to have vegetables that are sliced to the same width, or are already like that, and to make sure the vegetables are tender enough by pre-cooking or slicing very, very thinly before wrapping.

Thin green asparagus stalks with carrot sliced to the same thickness as the asparagus. Blanch both the carrot and asparagus (start with the carrot, then add the asparagus) until crisp-tender.
Enoki mushrooms with the root parts cut off can be used as-is.
Green onion or negi. Slice lengthwise very thinly, and/or blanch lightly before wrapping. Green onion wrapped in beef is a pretty common item on Japanese restaurant menus - you may see it called negimaki or negima for short.

Bento filler: Parsnip kinpira

maki — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:55:06 +0000

When you don’t live in Japan and you try to recreate Japanese recipes, ingredients can be a bit of a problem. I’m not really talking about the basic staples like soy sauce or mirin and so on; it used to be an issue trying to get a hold of those too, but with the growing popularity of Japanese cuisine in particular and Asian food in general, this has become much less of an issue. (Here, I either mailorder from stores in Paris or London, or stock up when we go to Lyon or Geneva.) But fresh ingredients are another matter. Take for example, the classic kinpira gobo, a terrific vegetable standby. It’s crunchy, a bit spicy, and goes well in just about any rice based bento, conventional or otherwise. It’s also very easy to make, freezes well, and is an all-around star. But getting hold of burdock (gobo) roots anywhere but a town with a sizeable Asian population? A bit difficult. Here in sleepy semi-rural France, forget it.

But I’m not complaining. I’ve already adapted the basic kinpira formula to use carrots only, or almost any kind of vegetable that’s suitable. Here’s yet another variation that uses a vegetable that you will not encounter in Japan, parsnips. I must admit I only encountered parsnip in the last decade or so of my life, after moving to Europe. I don’t think they are that common in U.S. supermarkets nationwide either, unlike the ubiquitous carrot or broccoli. But they should be! They’re naturally sweet, roast up beautifully, and make interesting purées or mashes. And, they have a crunchy fibrous texture that is quite similar to gobo.

So, here they are in kinpira form.

Because of their natural sweetness, no additional sugar or mirin is required, although you can add some if you like of course. A little bit of pre-treatment as it were is needed to counteract the texture, but it only adds a few minutes to your cooking time.

Recipe: Parsnip kinpira

Makes about 2 cups

2 medium to large parsnips, scrubbed well and peeled (you can skip the peeling if the skin is not so tough and bumpy)
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon light cooking oil such as light olive oil or canola oil
1 tablespoon toasted dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/8 teaspoon (or to taste) dried red chili pepper flakes, or use ichimi togarashi instead
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Cut the parsnips into thin matchsticks. This is a bit tough on your hands, especially if the parsnips have large cores, but it will be worth it!

(Note: You can skip this next step if your parsnips are young and tender and go straight to the stir fry step.) Heat up a large frying pan and put in the water. When the water is boiling, add the parsnips and put on a lid. Let it steam-cook for about 3 minutes. Open the lid and either drain off any remaining moisture or just let it evaporate.

Add the oils to the pan and stir fry the parsnips, 2-3 minutes. They should still be crisp but just about turning soft. Add the sesame seeds and chili pepper flakes and toss around well. Add the soy sauce and toss to coat everything well.

As with all kinpiras, this freezes very well. Just divide into individual portions and wrap in plastic, or use a freezer container. One way to make bento packing very convenient is to freeze kinpira in little divider cups; use disposable ones, or reusable silicone ones, whichever you have. To pack, just stick one in a bento, where it will defrost in plenty of time for lunch in most cases. (Although as with all kinpiras, in our household this rarely makes it to the freezer before it’s all devoured.)

Kinpira pasta?

This is something The Guy came up with the other day, after I’d been experiementing with parsnip kinpira. Some of it didn’t quite turn out right (I over- or under-did the parboiling part) but it still tasted good. He just boiled some linguine, added it and the kinpira to a pan and sautéed it a bit. It was spicy and crunchy and delicious. If you’ve made extra kinpira (any of the kinpira recipes on this site should work) give it a try!

Bento filler: Cucumber and Nashi (Asian pear) marinated salad

maki — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:16:28 +0000

Cucumbers are a perennial staple for me. They are available at any time of the year, even in the depth of winter. Sure they are greenhouse grown, but they are for most of the year anyway. They add a nice refreshing crispy crunch to any meal, including bentos. This is an extremely easy to make-ahead salad or marinade. Make it at least an hour before you want to eat it, or the night before for bentos. It will stay nice and crunchy for a week if you keep it tightly covered in the refrigerator, and the flavors will mellow nicely. This kind of marinated salad or instant pickle is called an amasu-zuke (sweet vinegar marinade). I have added a nashi or Asian pear to the cucumbers - their sweetness allows me to reduce the amount of sugar normally used to half, and the crispy texture is really nice with the cucumber.

Recipe: Cucumber and nashi (Asian pear) marinated salad

Makes about 8 cups of salad, plenty for several bentos and meals.

2 large cucumbers
1 medium to large nashi or Asian pear
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 tablespoon light (usukuchi) soy sauce (see soy sauce basics) - or use any soy sauce you have instead. Use a gluten-free soy sauce if you are concerned about gluten intake.
6 tablespoons rice vinegar or mild apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar or equivalent sugar substitute
1/3 teaspoon dried hot red chili pepper flakes, or to taste (or use ichimi togarashi instead)

Slice the cucumbers in half lenghwise, and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Slice the halves again into half, so you end up with quarters. Cut up the cucumber into chunks about 3/4 cm / 1/2 inch thick (no need to be too precise here; just chop away roughly).

Peel, quarter and core the nashi pear. Slice fairly thinly.

Combine the cucumber and pear in a large bowl and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the rest of the salt, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and chili pepper flakes. Stir well but don’t worry if the sugar and salt don’t melt totally - they will melt once you mix this with the vegetables. Put the combined sauce in the large bowl with the cucumber and pear, scraping out any unmelted sugar and salt. Mix very well. Cover, and let rest for at least an hour or overnight in the refrigerator. It will keep tightly covered for a week.

If using in a bento, you may want to put it in a leakproof container if you add some of the marinating sauce. This goes well with a Japanese-style or not-so-Japanese style bento.

Variations

Try using a crispy apple like Fuji instead of the nashi pear.

You can make a cucumber-only salad too, in which case increase the sugar to 2 tablespoons.