Bento-style Dinner
10:45:00 AM
Have you ever heard “Bento”
before? Bento is a Japanese lunch box which is filled with something compact
and easy to eat inside a box. Here, when I said “Bento style”, I referred to small
cooked items as fillings of Bento. Something I can pick easily with chopsticks.
I made three items: Dashimaki
Tamago (rolled egg omelet), Rolled Vegetables in Beef and Okura with Ume-boshi.
Dashimaki (rolled & seasoned) Tamago(eggs):
I put a scant of dried
bonito base (diluted in water), Mirin(sweet Sake) and salt for taste. Mix eggs
and the rest of ingredients well, heat a skillet and add grapeseed oil, then
pour egg mixture spreading evenly. As soon as the eggs become a bit solid,
start rolling the egg using chopsticks and shape like a cylinder. Inside this
omelet needs to be a bit soft.
Place a plastic wrap
on a counter where I put the omelet on. And then just wrap the omelet and roll
to shape but I have to be careful so that I don’t burn my fingers. I used
Maki-su (a tiny bamboo mat-like item to roll sushi inside) to shape the omelet
in cylinder.
When it’s cool, just
cut in desired thickness.
Rolled Vegetables in Beef:
On top of a paper-thin beef slices, I sprinkle
a bit of salt and pepper, and place cooked vegetables on one end. After I just
roll beef slices tightly like a mini cylinder.
Cook these in a skillet
with heated oil. Season with soy sauce and ketchup. When they are slightly
cooler, I cut them in half.
Okura and Ume-boshi (pickled salty plum):
Slice Okura, add
finely chopped Ume-boshi, a little Men-tsuyu (Japanese noodle sauce for Udon)
and dried bonito flakes.
Beside these, I
cooked 3 different types of rice (brown, red and black) with cut tomato cubes, sautéed
diced onions and chicken bouillon, a rosemary branch and water.
Usually, the Japanese
rarely eat rice in this fashion. But for me, if it tastes good and healthy with
loads of anthocyanin (type of flavonoids), then it’s even better than using
processed white rice.
As an accompaniment,
I prepared Miso (fermented soy bean paste) soup with several vegetables.
They are all easy to
make in a short time which require about less than 1 hour not including a
cooking time for rice.
I try to make
something healthy with lots of vegetables and natural fresh produces. Do you
know the Japanese live much longer than those folks in the other advanced
countries who tend to live longer than the rest of the world. But it doesn’t
matter if you live longer or not, if you are invalid in bed. My mother is a
good example. She’s well over 70 now but she doesn’t need to take any pills to
lower her blood pressure or cholesterol. She is totally healthy and active for
her age. In general, old-fashioned Japanese eat healthily with grains,
vegetables, seaweeds and fruits and some protein from soy beans, some meats and
fish. I assume a good balance in diet is important for maintaining well-being
and youth-”full”-ness.
In Japan, there is a
proverb which I believe derived from China in ancient time.
医食同源 (Ishoku-dougen)
a balanced diet leads to a healthy body; healthy food both prevents and cures sickness
In short, I want to keep whatever coming into my mouth, mostly
they shall be GOOD.
2 comments
このちょこちょこおかずご飯が食べたい！！
ReplyDelete玉子が丸くてかわいい～！
reeちゃん、どうもありがとう＾＾
ReplyDeleteこの卵は巻きずしを作るすだれで巻いたの。
そうすると形が整うから。