Nikuman are Japanese steamed hot buns with ground pork filling. The white bread part is made from both yeast and baking powder, and it is soft and tender. The filling is pork with chopped vegetables seasoned with soy sauce and other flavorings such as oyster sauce and ginger. The name Nikuman comes from the meat (Niku) and the cake (Man from Manjyu). Even though Manjyu are Japanese sweet cakes, this is a savory Manjyu Japanese people love eating for a snack and light meal.
Okayu is Japanese rice porridge. It is often eaten when people are not feeling well. It has a very mild taste and it’s easy to digest, making it a perfect food when you don’t have much of an appetite. Okayu is also eaten for breakfast sometimes. For example, some hotel restaurants there serve Okayu in a breakfast buffet.
Kitsune Udon (きつねうどん) is Udon noodles in hot Dashi soup topped with Aburaage that has been cooked in a sweet and salty sauce. Although you don’t often see Kitsune Udon in Japanese restaurants in the US, it is one of the most popular dishes and a staple menu item at Udon restaurants in Japan.
Kitsune is “fox” in Japanese, but don’t worry, we don’t use fox meat in the dish. Some people think the dish may have been named because of a folk tale that Aburaage is a fox’s favorite food. Others think it is called Kitsune because of the brown color that is similar to a fox. In fact, we often use “Kitsune Iro” (fox color) to describe a brown color in cooking.
As you can see from previous entries in our Bento Lunch series, Bento is a portable packed meal, usually eaten for lunch in Japan. You can buy bento at bento shops, convenience stores, grocery stores, train station shops – pretty much anywhere there. However, as we always say, the home-made kind is the best! And it’s not hard to make at all.
If you know you need to bring lunch the next day, just think ahead. Leave some food from dinner aside, and even prepare vegetables before you go to bed. It is busy in the morning for everyone, so keep the Bento making to a minimum in the morning.
We have Steamed Rice, Beef Roll Up with Vegetables, Tamagoyaki and Kabocha Salad in our Bento box this time. You could get Beef Roll Up prepared the night before, and it’s best to pan-fry the meat in the morning. Tamagoyaki doesn’t take long to make in the morning. Kabocha Salad should be made in advance. Add some lettuce for splash of color, and it also works as a divider between dishes. If you like, you can sprinkle black sesame seeds and salt on your Steamed Rice.
One thing you have to be careful about is the temperature: the wrong temperature may induce bacteria growth – yuck! You need to cool the Bento completely before you wrap it up. Also, raw fish or undercooked meat are not suitable for Bento. Try not to let it get too warm. You might want to use an ice pack during the summer. Treat your Bento like your ham sandwich.
For a container, you can use your old tupperware, of course, but there are tons of cute and cool Bento boxes you can get to show off your style out there. Some people also get really artistic and creative with how they cut and arrange food in the box. Faces, animals, nature scenes. Whatever makes you smile and hungry, pack it up – and don’t forget your chopsticks!
Beef Roll Up with Vegetables is pan-fried beef that is rolled up with vegetables inside. It is a great beef dish for dinner and also stays tasty cold in the lunch box.
When we cook beef in Japan, even though many of us like steaks and hamburgers just like in other countries, we most often use very thinly sliced meat. Thinly sliced beef is not only for Sukiyaki and Shabu Shabu either, but we use it for more casual everyday dishes such as Nikujaga. Paper thin beef is easy to use because it can be cooked through quickly and it’s softer and easier to chew.
Beef Roll Up seems to be hearty and beefy from outside, but actually not that much beef is used. Inside are a lot of vegetables, so it is quite healty. We used a carrot and green beans here, but you can choose other vegetables you like. Just cook them before rolling up. Seasoning in this recipe is a sweet and salty Teriyaki-like sauce, but you can simply use salt and pepper if you prefer.
Beef Roll Up is quick and easy to make, and strongly flavored beef is perfect with Steamed Rice. Try this for tonight’s dinner!
Ingredients
Instructions
Tenmusu are Onigiri rice balls with shrimp Tempura as a filling. Onigiri is rice shaped by pressing firmly in your hands and forming into a ball or triangle, or some other kind of shape. Typical fillings are pickled plum (Umeboshi), dried bonito flakes with soy sauce (Okaka), or salted salmon. Tenmusu is something special, with Tempura shrimp and all. It’s kind of like the “go-to” Onigiri for important Onigiri.
Melon Pan (メロンパン) is a Japanese sweet bread with a thin cookie crust on top. It is one of the most popular Kashi Pan (sweet bread) in Japan, loved by the young and the old.
Melon Pan was created about 50 years ago in Kobe by a bread baker. Originally Melon Pan was football-shaped rather than round. Because the bread was shaped similarly to the melons commonly eaten at that time, it was named Melon Pan. Today, Melon Pan is more typically a round shape with the signature look of grid line indentations. The flavor usually has nothing to do with the name, but more recently some bread makers try to add a melon flavoring or even fruit itself to the dough. You can add melon extract to the cookie dough if you can find it (never found in the US). We added lemon zest and vanilla extract here, and that gives a nice sweet smell.
Typical Japanese Bread is a soft white bread used to make many kinds of Kashi Pan (sweet bread) such as An Pan and Melon Pan. Japanese people love the softness in bread so much that it’s almost fanatical. There are more rustic crusty breads around and they like those kinds too, however, they always go back to sweet soft bread that people are familiar with. Japanese Basic Bread has a hint of sweetness but not overly, so you can make it into either sweet or savory bread. Once you master this versatile bread, you will be able to enjoy all sorts of arrangements of Japanese bread.
Shabu Shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ) is a Japanese hot pot dish, Nabemono, with paper-thin sliced beef. It is cooked at the dinner table using a portable gas stove and we eat it as we cook. There are a lot of Shabu Shabu speciality restaurants in Japan, but you can prepare it at home too. The single most important ingredient of the dish is beef. If you can get good quality meat, the rest is not hard at all.