Dinosaur Nugget and Lego Fruit Salad Bento

 http://www.wayfair.co.uk/Inspiration/Back-to-School-Bento-Box-Lunchtime-Ideas-E9567

By freezing the nugget dough, you can craft chicken nugget as you like such as the shape of dinosaur!!

Ingredients of chicken nugget

• 1 piece of  chicken breast (170-200g)
• 1/4 of medium sized round onion
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons of plain flour
• a pinch of garlic powder
• nutmeg, paprika powder
• a pinch of salt

(I also added some hard tofu this time, but not necessary)

Directions

1. Blend all the ingredients until to get smooth.

2. Place the dough over a large sized cling film and cover it with another large sized cling film. Spread it with a rolling pin into 1cm thick. Place it in a flat container and freeze it.

3. Once the dough is frozen, take it out from the freezer and remove the upper layer of cling film. Heat up a frying pan over medium temperature and pour 3 table spoons of vegetable oil. Dust plain flour thoroughly over the dough in both sides and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. By pushing up each piece from the bottom layer of cling film with fingers, you can easily remove it from the cutter. 

4. Place the nugget pieces as carefully and quickly as possible over the frying pan as the dough gets loose very fast. Fry them in both sides until they get crispy and golden brown. 

 5. Take the nugget pieces out and place them over a kitchen towel to remove the extra oil.

Alternatively, you can fry the nugget pieces in oven by using spray oil. Heat up oven over 200C and bake it for 6-8 minutes. This methodology enables the better shaped nugget but slightly dry texture compare to the one fried in a pan.

7. Enjoy decorating the nuggets! 

 Lego Fruit Salad

Cut fruits into cubes as well as thinly slice. Cut the thin layer into dots with a straw.

Kids can join the fun!

And enjoy 

"Mmmmmmmmmmm........."

The art of Japanese bento: tasty in cold, balanced nutrition, and quick to prepare

Bento is known as the Japanese lunch box. People love to create a tiny cosmology in such small space. 
The recent Lego Bento is a crazy example of bento-deco-fetish and I have to say that we don't have such detailed decorative bento every day. 

However, we concern a lot about the balance of nutrition in bento. Varieties of contents represents the many different foods and ways of preparation involved. Also, we do not spend much time to prepare in busy morning. Sometimes we use leftover, or we prepare in previous night. 

Therefore, bento should look colourful with many different contents and is to be prepared in short time. Besides, it should be tasty when it gets cold.  
That's the art of Bento. 

Today's bento contents and the main nutrition and calories of each is:

• Japanese style fried chicken 70g: protein and fat (250 Kcal)
• yam potato in Japanese style: carbohydrate, fibre (from yam and konjaku), beta-carotene (from carrot) (50 kcal)
• cucumber, tomato and halloumi skewered  salad: vitamin E, beta-carotene, fat and calcium in cheese (40 Kcal)
• 1/2 Boiled egg: Vitamin D, E (38 Kcal)
• 1/4 Apple: kalium, Vitamin E, C (20 Kcal)
• rice: carbohydrate (260 Kcal)
• dried shiso leaf to dress rice: solidum (2 Kcal)

Total calories: 680 Kcal
Total price: 2.4 pounds (1 for chicken, 0.4 for egg, 1 for the rest of veggies)

I seasoned chicken in previous night and also boiled an egg. In the morning, I deepfried chicken pieces in a small frying pan while skewering veggies. 
Rice and yam potato dish were leftover from previous dinner. 

In this morning, as usual, I spend less than 20 mins to complete this bento.

Another bento example is this.

 Contents, nutrition and carories  

• Potato croquette: carbohydrate, fat, vitamin D,E,C, (326 Kcal)
• Omelette with spinach and cheddar cheese: fat, carbohydrate  folic acid, Vitamin A, D, E, K, calcium (210 Kcal)
• 7-8 Cherries: carbohydrate, Kalium, Vitamin D, (60 Kcal)
• Cucumber, apple, halloumi cheese salad:vitamin E, fat and calcium (40 Kcal)
• Rice: carbohydrate (250 Kcal)
• Seaweed: fibre (nearly 0 Kcal)
• Umeboshi: sodium, Kalium (2 Kcal)

Total: 688 Kcal
Total price: 2 pound (0.6 for cherries, 0.4 for egg, 1 for the rest of veggies)

I usually add varieties of veggie dishes but not just salad. Cooked and seasoned veggies taste nicer if served in cold. Whereas salad becomes soggy or dry hours later after the preparation. Skewering small-cut cucumbers, cheese, mini tomatoes, apples makes Bento cute, easy to pick and fun to make.

Let's compare my bento with other popular take away food.

McDonald's lunch (french fry, cheese burgar and diet coke)

French fry (135g): carbohydrate, fat, Kalium (454 Kcal)
Cheese burgar (122g): fat, carbohydrate, sodium, Kalium, calcium (323 Kcal)
Diet coke: sodium (0 Kcal)
Total calories: 777 Kcal
Total Price: 2.90 pounds

Pret A Manger's lunch (BLT sandwich and cappuccino)

Blt sandwich: wholegrain bread, bacon, tomatoes, salad leaves, mayonaise:
fat, carbohydrate, protein, fibre, sodium, Vitamin E (493 K cal, 2.50 pounds)
Cappuccino: carbohydrate, fat, calcium (231 Kcal, 1.79 pounds)
Total: 724 Kcal
Total cost: 4.29 pounds


They got higher calories and certainly additive but less varieties of nutrition either contents. You need to add fruit or salad. Also, they are more expensive.


I introduce one of the most popular Bento contents -Karaage, Japanese fried chicken

Karaage:

Cut chicken thigh into large bite sized

Season the chicken with soy-sauce, mirin 1 tablespoon each, and grated ginger and a clove of garlic.
All are done in a zip-bag.

Close the zip and leave the bag in the fridge overnight. 

Good morning! Start to cook! Heat up a small frying pan and power vegetable oil in 1 cm depth.
Remove the liquid from the bag, take out the chicken and wipe the extra moisture with kitchen paper.
Dust each piece with cornflour.

Deepfry all pieces for 2 mins each side over medium temperature.
While deepfrying the chicken, cut cucumber and tomato into small bite sized and skewer them with a toothpick.

Pack everything tightly!!
Otherwise contents will play football while they are carried in underground.

Bento is ready to go!!

If you need to make bento every day, it is hard. 

However, if you don't, better to make it sometimes. That's the best way to enjoy making bento.

Besides, the person who eats your bento appreciates it more when it happens occasionally. 

When I need to make bento everyday, I'll create more ways to enjoy making it. 

The art of bento will be continued.

Lego Bento 

To entertain Mr. Husband at his office, 
I made Lego Bento..... 
sounds devoting wife I am. 

In fact, the main reason to create this silly bento is to make an entry to "School Lunch Challenge" run by a DIY site, Instructables. 
You can see the directions here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Lego-Bento/.

I love this site. So many stunning ideas and funny guides are there!

Time to prepare: 2 hours
Total cost: 3-4 pounds?? Any way, it's cheap as always

Hamburger Steak Bento

I stored two pieces of cooked hanbagu. I made it in different sauce. 

Simmer the hanbagu pieces with Japanese Tonkatsu Sauce (similar to HP Sauce), tomato ketchup and balsamic glase in 1 tablespoon each.

This sauce makes the meat pieces very rich and tasty when they are served in cold as bento.

I added boiled egg, skewered cucumber, tomato and cheese, and apple. Mr. Husband sent me a text message of "it was OISHII!! (delicious)" from his office.

Olympic Bento to celebrate the opening (27 July) 

We gathered up at our Bulgarian couple's to cerebrate the opening of London Olympic. To enhance the excitement, I brought "Olympic Bento" as well as "Olympic Cake".

Deep-fried pork rolls with shiso leaf and cheese (left), Sushi balls (centre), Prawn with black-white sesame seeds

Tomatoes salad with pear, shallot and dill dressing  was wrapped in cling film to avoid leaking for the travel

Ice cream scoop creates a cute round shape of potato salad 

I made flags of Bulgaria (for my friends), Russia (for Mr. husband), Japan, the U.K. and the Olympic

Tiger prawns were seasoned with mirin and soy-sauce 
(1 teaspoon each)

Dust the prawn with corn flour, dress with beaten egg
and cover the half surface with white sesame seeds

Cover the rest of space with black sesame seeds

Deep fried pork rolls with shiso and cheese is my mom's regular bento menu

Shiso (Oba) leaves are popular Japanese summer herb

Place a shiso leaf with a thin stripe cheese on one side of a piece of thin sliced pork

Roll up each piece, dust with corn flour, dressed with beaten egg and Panko (grated bread)

Deep-fry prawns first then follow to pork pieces
 in the same oil

Sushi toppings were salmon, ikura and sea bass. Ikura was seasoned with mirin and soy sauce (1 teaspoonful each). I also made peas rice balls.

Slice the fish in 5mm thick

Mix the rice (immediately after cooked) with Sushi vinegar (sugar and cider vinegar 1 tablespoon each, a pinch of salt)  and allow it cool. Then make mouth sized rice balls

 Prepare a sheet of cling film and place the fish and rice ball on it and wrap them tightly to make a cute round shape

Coriander leaves were added to sea bass.
Make a ditch on the top of salmon balls with the edge of teaspoon for topping ikura

Total time to prepare: 3 hours
Total cost: 19.50 pounds (11.80 for fish, 5.01 for sliced polk, 1.08 for Shiso leaves, 1.20 for mini-tomatoes, 0.5 for other veggies)