avid cook, speedy lunch packer, mom in San Francisco, & former expat fluent in Japanese.
Archive for March, 2008
Microwaved thin egg sheets (usuyaki tamago)
Japanese recipes sometimes call for thin sheets of egg omelette (usuyaki tamago) as a garnish (think hiyashi chuka cold noodles, chirashi zushi scattered sushi, or little shapes cut out of the egg with cutters), or as a decorative wrapper for fried rice or little rice ball purses. Think of them as a low-carb alternative to flour-based wraps or nori, for those who don’t like the flavor of seaweed. I’ve made these egg sheets in frying pans before, but it takes practice and technique to turn out an attractive result. Unless I’m using a slick, perfectly non-stick pan just for eggs, my efforts are doomed to failure and I’m left looking at an ugly pile of egg scraps. Very frustrating. When I was browsing speed bento cookbooks in a Japanese-language bookstore recently, though, my friend Mami-chan volunteered that she whips up thin egg sheets on a plate in the microwave all the time for her son’s bento lunches. I was intrigued. Was there an easier, faster way to make thin egg sheets using the microwave oven?
I did some research into Japanese-language recipes and techniques, and found that there are some tricks to producing a good microwave version of this classic. Plate selection is crucial, and seasoning is key to making something tastier than just thin scrambled eggs. (Read on for the full recipe, tutorial, freezing instructions, and a review of microwave-safe plastic wraps.)
TIP: You can make these in advance and freeze them for a speedy shortcut on time-pressed mornings (freezing directions follow the recipe).
Published by Biggie on March 19th, 2008 tagged eggs, freezing, glutenfree, lactose free, recipe, tips, tutorial or how to | 60 Comments »
Breakfast for lunch bento
Sometimes it’s fun to pack breakfast food for lunch, as I’ve done before with French toast, pancakes, waffles, and my version of an Egg McMuffin. Kids especially like the do-it-yourself aspect to the toppings and spreads that come with breakfast foods, like maple syrup, Nutella, jam, etc. You don’t have to be stuck making a fresh batch of pancakes or waffles on a weekday morning, though — make a little extra if you make them on the weekend when you have time, and then freeze them for a quick lunchtime option. Check out the full how-to posts on freezing pancakes or waffles for a refresher.
Contents of preschooler bento lunch: Blueberry mini pancakes, little pork sausages & ketchup, cucumber slices, cheese triangle, car-shaped molded quail egg, simmered red bell pepper with Korean barbecue sauce.
Morning prep time: 12 minutes, using frozen homemade mini pancakes and the multi-boiling speed cooking technique. In the morning, I microwaved the little frozen pancakes, sliced the cucumber, and briefly boiled the sausages, sliced bell pepper and washed quail egg together in the same tiny pot to save time. Because the quail eggs are tiny, they boil in just a few minutes. Once they were cooked, I peeled the two and molded them in a quail egg mold (the big yellow multi-egg mold in the photo below; see my earlier post on molding eggs). (Read on for full lunch packing info and an additional bento lunch.)