Sardine and paprika potatoes

I didn’t go out last night. I stayed in, listened to Radio 4, watched Coen brothers' movies and prepared today's bento.

• ·         Grilled sardine stuffed with lemon
• ·         Savoy cabbage sautéed with garlic and onion
• ·         Potatoes sautéed with salt, pepper and paprika
• ·         Tamagoyaki (into which I accidentally put dark soy instead of light)
• ·         Steamed broccoli
• ·         Lemon slice

Late riser bento

Just because you've woken up late doesn't mean you have to buy a sandwich for lunch!!

I try to have a couple of items prepared in advance for the whole week. Rice is always one of them - I cook it and freeze it in bento-sized amounts. This week, my other item is the beetroot salad you've probably seen cropping up again and again (I made it last week, too, I love beetroot!).

The other advance prep I did for today's bento was taking a chicken thigh out of the freezer to defrost in the fridge.

This morning, I leapt out of bed, put some porridge on (low heat) and tossed the chicken in some harissa. Once washed, I leapt out of the shower, gave the porridge a stir, popped the chicken into a frying pan and ran upstairs to get dressed.Once dressed, I flipped the chicken over to cook the other side, stirred some salt and a few grand of dark chocolate into my porridge and chopped some chard while it cooled. Once the chicken was cooked, I quickly stir-fried the chard (3 mins max) with some sesame oil and soy and popped it into the bento box with the chicken on top.

Ok, so I forgot my miso soup, forgot to put the laundry on and left the washing-up until this evening, but I think it was still a pretty good effort :)

Chicken and broccoli bento

Today’s bento reflects the fact that I woke up earlier than usual this morning, hehe. 

• Rice sprinkled with furikake
•  Chicken breast marinated in balsamic vinegar and soy and sprinkled with sesame seeds. This is one of Makiko Itoh’s recipes, only I forgot to roll the meat in sesame seeds before I fried it, so I just sprinkled them on at the end.
• Stir-fried chard
• Steamed broccoli
• Broccoli stem kinpira

The whole of this, by the way, comes to a total of 7 WW points, so that is a very light lunch indeed!

Afternoon Tea at Les Deux Salons

I decided to try the Afternoon Tea at Les Deux Salons because it is one of my favourite restaurants, and because they give afternoon tea a fair amount of prominence on their website and outside the restaurant.

The ambience at LDS is wonderful – they really make the most of the building and it is always a delight to be there. The welcome is always friendly – it’s just a very nice place to be.

Afternoon Tea, however, is a mixed bag. I’ll start with the good points:

The sandwiches: these were fresh and delicious, and although they mostly stuck to the classic fillings, my friend was pleasantly surprised to find mustard mayo on the salmon one, which we both thought was a great innovation.

The pastries: LDS is, of course, a French restaurant, so the pastries and tarts were absolutely spot-on. We were served delicate hazelnut and lemon meringue tarts and an apple pastry all of which were light, the right side of sweet and gorgeous to look at.

The mousses: pistachio mousse layered on a dark chocolate ganache was a dream, as was the light trifle: jellied fruits topped with sherry cream. Wonderful!

Now, I’m afraid, we must address the bad:

The tea: The quality of the tea was good, however, it was poorly served. Our tea was poured for us as soon as it reached the table – and of course it was very weak and unpalatable. Clearly they haven’t trained their staff to know that tea needs to steep.

The scones: We were very excited about the scones because they LOOKED perfect. Large, craggy and dusted with icing sugar. However, they were STALE. They crumbled under the knife, and even washed down with tea we didn’t feel like finishing them.

The cakes: I suspect that LDS just doesn’t have kitchen staff that are comfortable with cake. Like the scones, the two cakes we were served were stale, hard and unpleasant – most likely due to overbaking by cooks more used to pastry.

All in all, I would give LDS a 2.5/5 for its afternoon tea. However, I must state that this is an excellent restaurant – go there for lunch or dinner, but skip the dessert.

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.