helenjp

Misa's probably not reading this, but I thought maybe we could talk about "bento basics". I remember a friend saying that she thought the absolute basics of a bento were: onigiri (rice balls) with umeboshi, grilled salt salmon, boiled greens with crushed sesame seeds, and maybe a cold omelet. I guess that's about it...it's a combination which includes contrasting colors and textures, and a grilled dish and a boiled dish. And that in turn has its roots in the most basic of Japanese meals - rice, pickles, miso soup, salt fish, and some kind of dressed vegetable. So...rice! How do you all prepare your rice for bento? Do you like plain rice? Onigiri? Rolled fancy sushi or inari-zushi? In winter I add a little mochi rice to my ordinary rice (or use half Milky Queen variety) to make the rice a little softer when it's cold. In summer I drop an umeboshi into the rice cooker along with the raw rice - the rice keeps better and tastes sharp and refreshing.

I'm sure you're right! I remember now that a friend used to make a daikon salad with shreds of ham and green shiso, dressed with mayonnaise and lemon juice. The daikon is shredded and salted very lightly, then squeezed. I think it's better with a lemon vinaigrette, but it's a nice, easy salad!

Fundokin Miso "Kyushu-sodachi-mugi" is my recent favorite. Maybe spring just calls out for lighter misos? I found an extra thick type of salted wakame, and since then, every night has been wakame miso soup night! . It's just too good to pass by! Another favorite that gets revived at this time of year is okra (barely cooked chunks, not finely chopped) and new potatoes in miso soup. Those asari look good...

Ditto...over 8,000 views and you're not out of the weekend yet. People are watching what you post, never fear! At present though, we are at the stage where our lips are moving as we spell out what you are posting, but give us time, and you'll see that you've inspired some of us to make our way to the pastry forum to see what else we can learn. Don't forget, too, that you have to post after work, when most people in your time zone are starting to move away from their computers - so they are more likely to be looking on without posting. They're there though, so don't go posting photos of you in your knickers in the assumption that nobody's looking anyway . If you have a mo, perhaps you could show/tell your knives and cutting equipment? I've always thought that even if I could ever bake a beautiful dessert, I could nevernevernever cut and plate it nicely! So how do you get your joconde biscuit sliced so thinly and evenly and rolled round your mousse into such a perfect cylinder?

It took me a while to feel confident about cooking tapioca to get separate pearls for summery desserts, instead of a puddingy mass . It will shed LOTS of starch into the cooking water, which always makes me worry that I will end up with nothing but paste, but it's OK as long as you stop cooking it as soon as the pearls are cooked right through. I hope somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but what I do is: 1) Soak the tapioca in water for 1/2-1 hour and drain just before I cook it. 2) Scatter the tapioca into a pan of boiling water. Cook till you can't see any white "heart" to the individual tapioca pearls (watch carefully, you don't want to overdo it - some people leave just a speck of white, on the assumption that they will go on cooking, but I haven't managed to get that right). 3) Drain tapioca and immediately plunge into a bowl of iced water, stirring a little to break up any lumps of stuck-together tapioca. Now your tapioca will stay separate until you want to put it into coconut milk, syrup or whatever.

Hmmm...salty and sweet, I agree. I accidentally put some coarse salt on top of my shortbread, and some remained even after I brushed it off and replaced it with sugar crystals but that salty-sugary topping was the best yet! Bees and other garnishes...if you are cooking for a club, I imagine you have a fair number of children coming through??? I'm amazed at what an impact the really colorful or elaborate garnishes have on kids. My kids still talk about stuff they had as preschoolers...your hard work could be preserved as a delightful lifetime memory for somebody! (And since my husband and I had no wedding reception, both our kids were with us when we finally had a party. The photo shows me beaming at our guests...while my husband and our baby sons are totally mesmerised by the cake!) I'll be back to read more of your blog - I got an ultimatum on my son1's 2-month overdue birthday cake last night, so one Airbus A380 twindeck long-range jumbo jet birthday cake is now in production. During the time I spend making a hash of that, you will probably produce 1,000 spectacular desserts!

Mine too, quite clear, and bright yellow. Looks good enough to make an old gal cry. Tastes OK too.

I have a very few back from when they weren't collectors' items, but were available in any old second-hand bookstore. They are fine books...I brought a couple with me when I moved to Japan, which is saying a lot.

Definitely each to his/her own...according to my son, that gorgeous shot of your cat going after a pecan roll is "a picture of a Dell computer"... I'm reading with interest. I've actually often wondered how people who spend their workday surrounded with sweet food and sweet smells eat...it doesn't sound easy for you to come home from work feeling like a nice bit of swordfish and salad! I really loved your peekaboo easter egg centerpiece...amazing celebration of ancient fertility rites going on there .

You're right, I couldn't think why it didn't sound right! I corrected my post to avoid confusion, so now nobody will know what we are talking about, but thank you anyway! I actually hate the things, and would much rather have the thicker type of konnyaku noodle, but each to his/her own taste, I guess!

...that' "shira-taki" (means "white waterfall"), just in case you go hunting for them.

That's a point! But there are plenty of recipes I can try out before I run into major problems! Thanks all! I think I will try a new product called Riz Farine, which is more finely ground than most standard rice flours used for dumplings here. It's so long since I used the Chinese type of rice flour that you show, Dejah, that I can't remember how they compare to the Japanese ones. There are several recipes for raw tapioca root - grated and deepfried in balls or baked in cakes, or chunks boiled and served with syrup. I'm very curious to try these but I would have to substitite one or a mixture of taro,yam, or sweet potato - any suggestions?

Tofusal, at least your intentions were good! My worst to date was the special "carrot bento" I made the day after a really big row - my husband really HATES carrots. I did repent me enough to swap the carrot rice for plain rice before he went to work, but there wasn't time to redo all my evil works before he left, so that day he had to eat carrot tempura, carrots simmered, carrot salad, carrot and pork roll...

It's an interesting old world, innit. My husband is naturally picky though he started trying to eat more things when he saw that the kids ate them! My mother tried the "starve her into it" approach, and presented me with the exact same bowl of oatmeal with the curdled milk left on it (and nothing else to eat at all) at every meal for 24 hours until I broke down and ate it. It's really a bad idea, is all I can say about that policy. I have 2 kids, one who will eat almost anything, and who is physically very like me. He doesn't like greasy foods when sick, but I understand that completely and have no trouble predicting what he will eat. Son2 was, is, and no doubt will continue to be picky. He is allowed around 1 thing that I will never require him to eat (shrimp). For oher things that I know he dislikes, it's a matter of balance - I don't serve them too often, he will try them occasionally. Funnily enough, while my son1 is more adventurous in being willing to eat anything, son2 is more curious about actual tastes, more likely to comment on exact combinations, aromas, taste sensations etc., and since he turned 10 or so, has developed quite a few unusual "likes" to go along with his strong "dislikes". For example, he claims to like unripened astringent persimmons... , loves pickled bitter gourd and will gobble up a plate of it if not warned to leave some for everybody else.

Yikes, that *was* pretty strong! Our phones fell out of their cradles, but I'm happy to report that the nearly-completed bentos didn't fall off the bench! . I was interested to hear that your husband uses one of those 3-tier thermos lunch carriers - I thought they looked pretty good, but my aging husband said they would be too heavy to carry... Sounds like you had a nice day yesterday! Busking at Odaiba...hmmm...future career there for my DS2, I do believe! We had our "extra son" for the day, so I bribed our kids into buying the cheapest bento they could find with promises of icecream with the money saved, and walked along the avenue of cherries to our local temple, Hondoji. Extra son announced that he was astonished at our stinginess in proposing to walk to the gate of the temple and eat our lunch at the entrance, without going in. However, our thrift was rewarded - we arrived at 12:50, and found a huge notice proclaiming free entrance to the gardens from 13:00 . The strong wind was blowing petals into drifts, and the 3 boys staged "snow" fights, sprinkled them into the air, and made whistles out of the petals. With harder economic times, cheap all-starch bentos can be found, but some of them are quite ingenious - instead of an acre of rice with a pickle in the middle, they have a small amount of rice with a topping at one end, and cold noodles at the other end!

Just got my new recipe book "Sweet & Savoury Malay Kuih" by Norzailina Nordin. Only one problem....wonder WHICH rice flour she means when she mentions "rice flour" in her recipes! Raw ordinary rice dry-ground into flour? (Not glutinous rice flour cooked or raw, and not a flour which is made from wet-ground grain later dried...right??!) Recipes which just say "rice flour" are apam tepung, tepung pasung, sagon, buah tanjung, kekoleh lemak...and many others. She does mention glutinous rice flour elsewhere, though she doesn't mention whether she means the cooked type or the uncooked type. Hints, please?

That couscous dish looked great! I'm not sure that chickpea dish is in my old edition of MEF though...maybe it's time to update!

I made this for Friday night dinner, which has to be made fast for 2 boys hungry after swimming, and it's a busy work day for me usually. No question of photos! The boys ate it so fast I had a job reserving one serving for my husband before they were back for seconds! It was quick and tasty without being oppressive. The peanuts and pickled radish definitely contributed a lot to my kids' enjoyment of the dish. We made ours using pork and shrimp, to cater for fussy shrimp-haters in the family. I cooked the egg around 40 seconds before adding the noodles, so it was half cooked, with just enough moisture to cling to the noodles. I thought the rice sticks might disintegrate completely before my husband ate his serving, but for a noodle dish, this one survived the delay in good shape.

I tried a milk kanten with 1% fat milk yesterday, very slightly sweetened, and with SWEETCORN in it . Yes! It was creamier/smoother and less mushy in texture!

Smallword's quiz: The bento includes savouries and sweets, but no rice. Why not? Cos it's basically drinking snacks, and you can't serve two rice products (sake and boiled rice) together.... (Am I right? Yeah? Do I get a sticker?)

Happy Payday I'm in that "the month before payday phase, but it'll pass, it'll pass! ...what do you plan to do with that couscous? I bought a box last week too, and am now mulling over its future.

I popped in to ask...what kind of bento do you make for your husband's lunch? I'm curious, because I assume it's pretty different from what I make for my desk-driving 54-year old husband! ...and then I saw your daughters' ballet class! All I can say is...I had no idea I thought little girls all wore plain black leotards to class . What I've missed through having only boys! Did your kids eat the flounder eggs? Mine won't, and neither will my husband.

somebody asked about deepfrying vs shallowfrying. I tried the eggwash/seasoned flour/immediate frying version and decided that deepfrying produces a softer crust than shallowfrying (crisp rather than crunchy). The deepfried chicken was a little paler than the shallowfried version. I deepfried in a wok, and used a lid. Just for the hell of it.

Smallworld, that hanami bento is lovely! I'm trying to figure out how to fit a little hanami in this busy weekend. The key question is: is it possible to make a bento that 1)is different from everyday lunches, because right now the whole family are on bento, 2) doesn't exhaust me making it!, and 3) contains things that my FIL, now 87, and his wife can eat.

Seconded! When we had 5 people at home (two men including brother in law, plus 2 pre-teen boys and me), I estimate we spent roughly 60,000 yen, including beer and eating out....and that must be roughly average, since it is around 20% of the national average income. Tokyo expenditure is higher than average, (partly because there are larger numbers of wealthy older people without dependent family, partly because living expenses are higher) so 40,000 is extremely thrifty. The wider Tokyo area average is close to 80,000 yen, I've heard, and if I had it, I could spend that much without blinking. I think that families with good incomes who get rent assistance from employers commonly spend over 100,000 yen. A lot of that extra expenditure would come from eating out. Apart from the generally good childraising environment and elementary schools in Japan, it's nice that somebody like Kris who really hones her skills is recognized in Japanese society. Women's magazines here have all the gossip and the fashions, but also a lot on family finances, education, and the nitty-gritty of extended family responsibilities. The whole gender picture here is (of course) much more complex than it looks in the newspapers, so I'll stay out of that .