Innie or Outie

This is another of the local convenience store versions of a bento meal consisting of spaghetti, garlic chicken, potato salad, green beans, and rice sprinkled with goma (sesame seeds).

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This is a convenience store bento with a local obasan influence consisting of jushi (a style of prepared rice that is more often found in onigiri) pickled radish, tenpura, chicken, potato croquette, mackerel, pork luncheon meat, and konnyaku with seaweed.

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So, here I am still trying to come up with dishes that will help us use up a little more of that enormous gift of twenty-five 70 gram servings of somen. This is the latest creation, Sausage-Pepper Medley on Bleu Cheese-Basil Somen:

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To make this very simple dish simply use the desired amount of hot somen tossed with chunks of room-temperature bleu cheese and chopped fresh basil, topped with julienned onion sautéed in olive oil and minced garlic paste stir-fried with julienned spicy sausage, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, chives, and kamaboko. To complete the meal, I decided to go with a cool refreshing fruit instead of greens, Spiced Pear Salad:

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Peel and grate pear, then toss with chopped fresh mint leaves. Chill in refrigerator until almost ready to serve. About five minutes prior to serving, line bowl with iceberg lettuce, top with pear mixture, and sprinkle with desired amount of powdered all spice, nutmeg, or cinnamon. (If desired, you can make mini lettuce wraps instead of a salad with this recipe.)

Here’s a seafood meal Hubby made, Papa’s Tuna Pabuca Dinner:

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For the tuna pabucas he used onion sautéed in olive oil, tuna, panko, fresh rosemary, and egg. He formed the pabucas, sautéed them in olive oil, then smothered the pabucas with a cream, butter, cheddar, fresh rosemary, basil, scallion, Worchester, and white pepper sauce. The greens were frozen spinach sautéed in sesame oil with dried garlic chips. The rice was sprinkled with dried parsley flakes. To complete the meal hubby added a small salad of iceberg lettuce, arugula, cherry tomato, chive, and herbed croutons topped with a creamy sesame dressing.

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These are a local restaurant’s version of scones. Many of the restaurants have begun to offer take-outs of their “tea-time” goodies. These particular scones ranged in flavors such as chocolate, lemon, raisin, and blueberry.

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Here is a simple dish I came up with to make use of some of that somen (noodles), Beef Curry Noodle Crunch:

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Per serving, 70 grams uncooked somen, 1 1/2 cup heated curry, 1 teaspoon sweet pickled daikon, 1 tablespoon zasai (pickled turnip). Prepare somen according to directions, rinse and strain, place on paper towels to remove excess liquid, divide into two piles per serving, deep fry, place on paper towels to remove excess oil, plate, ladle on curry, top with daikon, and place zasai on the side.

This convenience store version of bento had a distinct sense of East meets West. Included in the meal were German-style potato with onion and bacon, steamed string beans and corn niblets, meat sauce spaghetti, deep fried chicken, hamburger pattie with grated daikon (radish) and julienned nori (seaweed) on an iceberg lettuce bed, and rice sprinkled with dried parsley flakes.

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Another fried rice recipe from hubby making use of Obon leftovers, Papa’s Everything But the Kitchen Sink Fried Rice:

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For the dish, hubby sautéed diced white onion in sesame oil, and stirred in diced precooked boiled pork roast, steamed shrimp, diced kamaboko, chopped leek, white pepper, precooked rice and soy sauce. After plating, the mixture was topped with cracked toasted sesame seeds and julienned pickled ginger.

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As an accompaniment to the dish, hubby chose a canned “oriental-style” (similar to egg drop) soup.

This convenience store version of bento had somen with tuna, tofu/goya chanpuru, potato croquette, deep fried chicken with mystery sauce, mashed potatoes with ketchup, deep fried shrimp and white fish with tartar sauce, rice, and pickled eggplant.

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This grocery store version of bento was less-filling then what is usually seen. The meal included two types of sautéed vegetables, hot dog, potato croquette, tofu, tenpura, kamaboko, pickled ginger, mackerel, and rice.

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