Author

JapaneseCooking101

Browsing

Bento Lunch Menu 3






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!




Print

Bento Lunch Menu 3

No ratings yet

Ingredients

Instructions 

  • Pack steamed rice with a sprinkle of Gomashio, and arrange the other dishes in the bento box.



Bento Lunch Menu 3

View Post
By

Tenmusu Recipe

Tenmusu Recipe

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.

View Post
By

Melon Pan

Melon Pan

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.

View Post
By

Japanese Basic Bread Recipe

Japanese basic bread

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.

View Post
By

Shabu Shabu Recipe

Shabu Shabu recipe

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.

View Post
By

Menchi Katsu Recipe

Menchi Katsu


Menchi Katsu is deep-fried ground meat patties with chopped onions and seasonings.  It is a popular western food from butcher shops and delis in Japan just like Korokke.  Menchi Katsu tastes like a hybrid of Hamburger Steak and Tonkatsu.  Inside is juicy hamburger, and outside is crunchy Panko crust.  Even though Menchi Katsu is categorized as a “B class” cheap dish, freshly fried Menchi Katsu is as good as expensive steaks! … or at least we think so.

View Post
By

Miso Dressing Recipe

Miso Dressing


Miso Dressing is a tasty Miso based dressing great for salads, simple boiled vegetables (as in the recipe), and even cooked meat.  This salty sweet dressing tastes quite different from western dressings, but you’ll like it if you like the flavor of Miso.

You can use either white or Awase (between red and white) Miso for the dressing.  Red Miso may have too strong of a flavor for this dressing.  A key flavor of the dressing other than Miso is sugar.  We think a bit on the sweet side tastes better, but you can decide how much sugar you would like to use.  Depending on what kind of Miso you choose, you may have to adjust the amount of sugar.  White Miso is much sweeter, so beware.

View Post
By

Hayashi Rice Recipe

Hayashi Rice


Hayashi Rice is Japanese beef stew poured over Steamed Rice.  Hayashi sauce has distinct flavors of demi-glace brown sauce and red wine.  It has been a popular western style Japanese dish since the early 1900s.  Hayashi Rice is often found on a menu at Yoshoku-ya (western style food restaurants) along with Hamburger Steak and Tonkatsu.  It is also a popular home cooking dish, although the sauce is usually made from instant roux looking just like instant Curry roux.  It was more popular in the 70s and 80s, but Hayashi Rice is still an old time favorite Yoshoku for Japanese people.

View Post
By