avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom in San Francisco, & former expat fluent in Japanese.
Archive for July, 2007
Mediterranean lunches
Contents of Bug’s lunch: Dolmas (seasoned rice wrapped in grape leaves), baked salmon with pesto sauce, plum tomatoes, tabbouleh (bulgur wheat salad with parsley, cucumbers and tomatoes), a bunch of tiny Champagne grapes, and Hami melon. The Hami melon is a kind of Chinese muskmelon with crisp, sweet flesh. Bug decided he didn’t like tabbouleh after all, so more for mommy!
Morning prep time: 6 minutes, using leftovers and pre-made deli food. I packed the leftover salmon and pesto sauce when cleaning up from dinner the night before, the tabbouleh was ready-made from Costco (pretty good!), and the dolmas were pantry staples from a can. So other than plating the lunch, the only prep needed this morning was cutting up a slice of the melon.
Packing: I broke up the baked salmon for easy preschooler eating, and put the tabbouleh in a a coated food cup to keep it away from the fruit. Packed in a cheap 3-tier 495ml bento box from Daiso.
Cooking: The baked salmon is a dead-easy dish to make on a weeknight that allows you to quickly prep it and walk away. An hour in a moist, low oven yields moist, tender salmon every time — perfect for leftovers that can be transformed into composed salads, etc. I first came across this technique in Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Café Cookbook. Essentially you take a big boneless fillet of salmon, put it on a lined baking sheet, rub it with olive oil, and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and salt (coarser gourmet salts like fleur de sel really shine here). Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F (93 deg. C) — very low!! Place a pan of warm water on a low rack in the oven to create a moist cooking environment, and put the salmon on the middle rack. Let it bake for an hour, then remove from the oven and let it stand for at least 10 minutes (up to 3 hours) to cool. Spectacular results every time and excellent at room temperature, so whenever I go to Costco I try to pick up a side of salmon for this dish. An entire side is way too much for one meal for our family, so I look at it as planned leftovers (but you can make it with less salmon).
Click for yuzu miso glaze recipe…
Published by Biggie on July 17th, 2007 tagged bento, fish or seafood, for kids, lactose free, phyllo or pancake or other, recipe, rice, salad | 27 Comments »
Leftover remake: Curry pasta lunches
I had some leftover Japanese chicken curry from dinner, so today’s lunches are a Leftover Remake: curry pasta.
Contents of my lunch: Japanese curry pasta (gemelli) with chicken, carrots, onions, potatoes and added broccoli. The fruit layer has fresh figs, half an apricot, blackberries and mango nectarine. The mango nectarine is a pale nectarine reminiscent of both mango and nectarine in flavor and texture — delicious although delicate and easily bruised. I packed mango nectarines in a lunch last summer and liked the flavor, so when I saw them again this year I picked some up. Good thing, as evidently their season is very short (just two to three weeks in the summer).
Morning prep time: 6 minutes, using frozen unsauced pasta and leftover curry. I quickly cooked some broccoli florets in my microwave mini steamer for one minute, and added them to the leftover curry and frozen pasta that I microwaved to revive the texture before packing. Sliced some fruit and we’re ready to go.
Packing: Much of the fruit here is very delicate and ill-suited to rough treatment or tight packing (see my post on gap fillers). As blackberries are especially fragile, I put them in a reusable plastic food cup to ensure they didn’t turn into mush in transit. I like these little cups as they’re reusable like silicone cupcake liners, but sturdy enough to actually protect the food inside from damage. I bought some of these at Daiso, others from eBay (click the photo for details). I did forget to reserve some extra curry sauce to pack on the side, though, so unfortunately the pasta was a big dry by the time we ate it (live and learn). The lunch was packed in my 580ml Urara dragonfly box.
Husband and preschooler bentos behind the cut…
Published by Biggie on July 13th, 2007 tagged bento, curry, for kids, lactose free, leftover remake, pasta or noodles, poultry | 6 Comments »
Tip: Freezing unsauced pasta
Regular readers may remember my post on freezing sauced spaghetti cups in individual servings for speedy packed lunches, but you can also freeze unsauced, cooked pasta for greater flexibility. Today I cooked and froze a batch of pasta (gemelli here) for speedy lunch prep. Just grab a pack from the freezer and use in dishes when texture is not at the forefront (i.e. sauced pasta salads, with tomato-based sauces, etc.). The important point here is to toss the hot, freshly cooked pasta in some butter, olive oil or vegetable oil right after draining to keep it from sticking, and to freeze it quickly after tossing with the oil. My Japanese books on freezing recommend cooking it al dente, and microwaving when you’re ready to eat for pasta in a hurry. For bento lunches, I like to pack a little extra sauce on the side and re-sauce it right before eating so that it’s not too dry. Edit: You can pull out the frozen pasta on busy mornings when nothing else is at hand, and make a quick pasta salad or combine it with some pasta sauce or leftover curry or stew for a quick meal like this leftover curry pasta lunch.
How to Freeze: You can use either freezer bags or plastic wrap to freeze. The advantage of a freezer bag is that you can shake out just as much pasta as you want to
use, and reseal the excess. If using freezer bags, be sure to press or suck out the excess air from the bag with a straw before sealing (picture a do-it-yourself FoodSaver vacuum sealer). This helps prevent freezer burn. If using plastic wrap, freeze little packages of individual servings on a metal tray to speed freezing, then put the packets inside of a larger freezer bag or airtight freezer container for longer-term storage. Frozen pasta will taste best when used within one month of freezing, but can technically be held indefinitely as long as the freezer temperature is below 0 degrees F (not Celsius!) and the pasta is well wrapped to prevent freezer burn.
RELATED POSTS:
- Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
- Leftover Remake: Curry pasta lunches
- Using frozen pasta to make quick pasta salad lunches
- Speed Bento Technique: Frozen spaghetti cups
- Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews
Published by Biggie on July 12th, 2007 tagged freezing, parenthacks, pasta or noodles, tips, tutorial or how to | 23 Comments »
Pork bun lunches
Contents: Steamed pork buns (baozi) and sauce, tangerine teriyaki tofu, edamame, cherry tomato, and pepperonata (roasted red peppers in rustic tomato sauce). Not shown: 100% raspberry juice cut with water in the bento set’s drink container. I got a package of the pork buns from my local Chinese bakery, but I’ve also seen them frozen in Asian markets.
Morning prep time: 8 minutes, using pre-made food and leftovers. The pepperonata was from a jar, the tofu was pre-marinated and just needed a quick pan sear. I steamed both the pork buns and frozen edamame together in a big microwave steamer for a minute, then let it sit enclosed in the steamer afterwards for a minute to finish steaming (definitely improving the texture of the bun). I used pre-filled sauce containers of mixed soy sauce and rice vinegar for speed.
Packing: I went ahead and packed the warm buns, tofu and edamame in the boxes, then let them cool with the lids open for optimum packed lunch food safety. The moist pepperonata was well contained in this particular container with built-in dividers; if packed in a non-divided box it would have required separation or draining and drying. Packed in two 350ml containers from my Lock & Lock insulated lunch set.
Click for preschooler bento details…
Published by Biggie on July 11th, 2007 tagged beans, bento, dumplings or buns, for kids, lactose free, meat, pasta or noodles, tofu | 22 Comments »
Tutorial: Making tamagoyaki or Japanese rolled egg
Japanese rolled omelette (tamagoyaki or dashimaki tamago) is a classic dish in Japanese bento lunches, popular with children, flexible (you can add things to it like tarako, green onions, nori or sauteed broccoli stems), shapable (hearts, triangles, etc.). But it can be challenging to make until you get the hang of it. I’ve picked up tips and troubleshooting advice from Japanese cookbooks to guide you along the way, and detailed them below in a step-by-step tutorial.
I prefer the flavor of dashimaki tamago (rolled egg with dashi — bonito stock) to plain tamagoyaki as I like the nuance that dashi adds. The dashi does make the uncooked egg mixture more liquidy than with tamagoyaki, so it’s a little more delicate to form. The basic techniques are the same for both, though.
Click for full tamagoyaki tutorial and recipe…