Quick bento

Today's bento was pretty simple, but yummy:

In the bottom layer I put stir-fried chard, white sushi rice, some leftover chicken and a piece of salmon marinated for a few minutes in soy, mirin and honey and then rolled in black sesame seeds.

In the top layer, I put grated beetroot and some grapes.

If you want to make this very quickly (in the time it takes the rice to cook, you can - it just means using three pans at once. If you want to save on washing up and use a single pan, it takes about 20-30mins.

A proper bento for once

Today is a bit of a "treat" bento. I made two, one for me and one for a friend, with identical contents:

Balsamic sesame chicken
Beetroot salad made with grated beetroot, 1tbsp rice vinegar, 1tbsp sesame seeds, 1/2 tsp chilli flakes and a drizzle of honey
Tamagoyaki
Savoy cabbage stir-fried with sesame and garlic
Parsnip kinpira
Fun-shaped onigiri (no filling)

Here are the results:

Stars and salads

A very quick entry on today's bento, which is actually not for lunch. I have Thai food at a local pub for lunch on Fridays, but this evening I am going to the cinema straight after work and I don't want to feel like falling over if I have acouple of drinks after that, so I've prepared a light bento.

Rice stars:

I know there are some wonderful people who do these by hand, but I use rice moulds I bought from Bento & Co and then I pat them with some sesame furikake I got at the local health food shop.

Marinated tofu:

My quick tofu marinade is 50/50 lime juice and soy. I dip the tofu in the mixture and then dry fry it.

Salads:

On the left I have some steamed broccoli, and below it some iceberg lettuce (no dressing). In the middle is a serving of Makiko Itoh's delicious cucumber and nashi salad.

Quickly, quickly

I woke up late today, so today’s bento isn’t particularly imaginative. In fact, it’s three rather hastily composed columns of leftovers from earlier in the week, and took me a total of two minutes. Spend five and you’d get the columns straight!

L-R:

• Sushi rice
• Stir-fried chard with soy and sesame
• Chick pea stew

Moroccan Bento

Today’s bento is Moroccan-inspired. I used to live in the north of Paris, where I made a lot of north African friends, including a chef! He taught me a lot of the basics of Moroccan cooking, including how to make beautiful tagines and mix my own ras-el-hanout. This stew is great served alongside cous-cous (jewelled with your favourite fruits) and grilled meats of halloumi.

Chickpea and carrot stew (serves 2-3)

·         2-3 tsp olive oil

·         1 tbsp ras-el-hanout (or make your own quick mix by grinding 1 tsp cardamom, three cloves, 4 peppercorns  and half a teaspoon each of chilli flakes (if you like it less spicy, just make this a pinch), fried coriander, dried cumin, nutmeg, cinnamon and turmeric)

·         ½ onion, chopped

·         1 tin chickpeas, drained

·         2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

·         1 teacup water

·         Fresh coriander (if you like)

Heat the oil, then add the onion and spices and stir well. Leave on a low heat until the onion is soft and the spices are really fragrant, then add the chickpeas and carrots and stir well so they are covered in spice before adding the water. Cook on a medium heat until the carrots are soft, then raise the heat to reduce the liquid. Add salt and pepper to taste a few minutes before the end.  

For today’s bento I’ve tried a sort of concentric circles effect, but I think I included too many elements. This probably works best with just three things.

The inner circle is cous-cous, simply steamed and tossed with chopped dried apricot.

The outer circle includes chicken (which I marinated in rose harissa and then grilled), grated carrot with soy and chickpea and carrot stew.

In the top layer of the bento, I have Physalis, blood orange and Asian pear.  

A little bento garden

Last week I bought myself a new bento box, and this week I am finally getting to try it out :)

Unfortunately the pictures aren’t too great as I forgot my camera, so I had to take them with my phone, post to Facebook and plonk on here.

The beauty of this bento box (from Muji, in case you are interested) is that it has a large, deep bottom section which you can decorate like a garden J and which will fit more than enough savoury lunch for one person (mine is not full, and this is quite a large bento for me). So, that means you can fill the top with fruit salad!

Today I decided to do a “garden” bento, but I am contemplating concentric circles for tomorrow. Watch this space. 

Anyway, here is the menu:

I made my garden using:

1. White sushi rice
2. 1 spicy Chinese fish ball
3. Tofu rolled in sesame seeds and pan-fried
4. Stir-fried chard and onion
5. In the three little pots:

· Shredded daikon dressed with soy

· Onion and red pepper confit (I got this recipe from Maki’s blog Just Bento)

· Shredded carrot dressed with soy, rice vinegar, chilli and sesame

One of my tricks to keep the oil content down is to use the same pan for everything and cook them consecutively. I made the confit first, as that requires a bit of oil, and when it was about half done I added the tofu so it could benefit from a little of the oil and grab some of the flavour. When both were done, I added another half teaspoon of oil and the chard/onions – the benefit of this is that they got all the leftover toasted sesame from the tofu. 

The fruit salad layer has:

• Blood orange (not very artfully peeled, I admit)
• Nashi pear
• Kiwi fruit

I love fruit salad and think it is a great way to end a meal. And a nice way of treating yourself to “dessert” if you are trying to shed pounds with Weight Watchers (zero points!).