Just Bento

Bento contents:

• 3 bento sized mini cabbage rolls, 180 calories
• Green beans stir fried with ginger and sesame oil, 60 calories
• Carrot slices cooked with the cabbage rolls, 5 calories
• 2/3 cup (160ml) rice from frozen stash, 160 calories

Total calories (approx): 405 (how calories are calculated)

Time needed: 5 to 10 minutes in the morning to defrost and pack up the bento

Type: Japanese, fairly low-carb, everything made in advance

This is a bento featuring those bento sized mini cabbage rolls I described last time. Everything in this bento is pre-made! The mini cabbage rolls were made in advance and frozen (together with the carrot slices, which were just cooked along with the cabbage rolls), the rice is from my freezer stash, and the green beans are leftovers from the night before - simply stir fried with a little chopped ginger and sesame oil. Because the vegetables are all pre-cooked, they aren’t that vibrant in color, but they still taste great. I added a splash of color with that old standby, cherry tomatoes, keeping on the blossom ends for a bit of green. All you have to do in the morning is to pack up the box. You could even do this the night before if you prefer.

As you can see, there is less rice than I used to pack in this bento, because I’m trying to reduce the amount of carbs I eat (more on that over on Just Hungry if you’re interested). There’s just about 2/3rds cup of cooked rice here, or about the amount of rice that would be served in a small Japanese rice bowl. If you need more carbs, it’s easy to add more rice; if you’re eating strictly low or no-carb, I would add one or two more cabbage rolls and leave out the rice. (And yes I did use white rice. I have some I want to use up. You can use brown rice or other grain of your choice here if you prefer.)

I used a microwave-safe box so that I could heat up the cabbage rolls, though they are good cold too.

The bento box I used

The box is a two-tier one with Ponyo on the lid. The smaller tier has a flexible leak-resistant lid. This box is great for people who like to divide their food up into little compartments in their bento boxes, since it has not one but two dividers. If you used them both, you could arrange your food into six little divisions. It also comes with a sort of half-moon rice mold that you can press on top of yoru rice to give it some definition and make it a little easier to pick up with chopsticks. (See also: cubed bento rice.)

This box is available from J-List/JBox. They also have the same bento box in bright red with Hello Kitty on the lid- that one even comes with a matching drawstring bag.

I love cabbage rolls, whether rolled or deconstructed, but regular sized ones are a bit too large and sloppy in my mind to put into all but the largest bento boxes. These are little bento sized cabbage rolls, just a bit bigger than a pingpong ball. They aren’t too showy to look at, but are deliciously juicy hot or cold. They are kept compact and slim by using napa or Chinese cabbage instead of regular cabbage leaves, since napa cabbage leaves are thinner and more tender, and using the smaller inner leaves that are about 10 inches (25cm) long.

Another feature of these cabbage rolls is that I tried making them in a rice cooker, and they came out great. I’ve also given instructions for making them on the stovetop, but if you’re looking for more ways to utilize your rice cooker, you may want to try it out that way.

These little cabbage rolls freeze beautifully, which is why I’ve put them in the Johbisai/staples section. Despite their meaty taste, they are fairly low in calories since they contain all of the chopped up stem parts of the cabbage leaves.

Recipe: Bento-sized mini cabbage rolls

Make about a dozen small cabbage rolls

• 12 smallish (about 10 inches / 25 cm long) napa or Chinese cabbage leaves, taken from the inner parts of the cabbage
• 12 oz (350g) ground pork, ground beef, or a mixture of the two
• 1 small onion, finely chopped (about 4 Tbsp)
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• black pepper to taste
• 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp plain, unseasoned dry bread crumbs or panko
• 3 cups (660ml) chicken or vegetable stock or dashi, or the same amount of water with chicken or vegetable stock cube/granules added

Put the washed napa cabbage leaves in a pot and cover with water. Bring up to a boil, then turn the heat off. Leave to cool, then take the limp leaves out and squeeze them out. Alternatively, put the leaves on a plate and cover with plastic wrap, and microwave for 7 minutes until the leaves are limp. Leave to cool, then squeeze out the moisture.

Take each leaf and spread it out, and cut out the stem part. You’ll be left with a leaf with an inverted V shape cut out of it.

Set the leaves aside, and chop up the stems finely. Squeeze out any excess moisture from the chopped up stems.

Put all the ingredients, except for the set-aside leaves and the stock, into a bowl and mix together well with your hands. Form into 12 balls.

Now to start rolling. Put a leaf in your work surface, and put a golf ball sized meatball on the leafy end. Wrap the end of the leaf over the meatball.

Wrap the two sides over the meatball.

Bring the tail ends of the leaf up and over the meatball.

Tuck the ends under. Here’s one completed cabbage roll (or cabbage ball…), next to a tablespoon for size comparison.

If you’re using a rice cooker: Put the soup stock in the inner bowl. (Note that if you use dashi stock the cabbage rolls will taste more Japanese, but regular soup stock is fine too.) Put the cabbage rolls, seam side down, in the bowl. You can pile them right in, like so.

Close the lid, and set the rice cooker to cook. Note that I used a 5-cup Zojirushi rice cooker for this, similar to this one but about 20 years old! If your rice cooker is larger or smaller, cooking times may vary (if you have a small rice cooker with a loose lid, watch out for boil overs; you might want to use the stovetop method instead, or cook the cabbage rolls in two batches). I just switched it on and left it until the cooking cycle stopped. The rolls should cook for at least 20 minutes, or until the rolls feel firm when you poke them. Cooking them for a bit longer doesn’t harm them at all - they just get more tasty.

If you’re cooking them on a stovetop: Use a pan that is large enough to allow the rolls to be placed in a single layer, and has a tight fitting lid. Put in the stock, and add the cabbage rolls. Bring up to a boil, then lower the heat so that it’s just simmering. Put on a lid, and let simmer for 40 minutes.

To use in a bento, drain off the excess liquid well. They can be eaten at room temperature, or heated up for a couple of minutes in the microwave.

To freeze these, put in a freezer-safe and microwave-safe container with a little of the cooking liquid. They’ll keep in the freezer for about a month.

Footnote: I have to admit that I haven’t been doing a whole lot of cooking of any kind in the last few weeks, what with having surgery, the hospital stay, the house still in a mess, and other large and small annoyances. But I’m slowly getting my cooking and bento-oing mojo back!

This week’s Great Bento Idea comes to us from MJ, who posts her bento photos on Flickr. She says that some of her bentos are “….thought out, some thrown together in 5 minutes while half asleep. Some I even get to eat myself.” I can relate to that! She has a quirky sense of humor too - check out this eyeful bento for instance. It just goes to show that there’s no limit to what you can do in a bento box.

I particularly like this salad bento because of the cucumber ribbons. They are simple to make but, arranged the way they are they make make the whole bento look quite elegant, without a whole lot of effort. I think that the ribbons work particularly well in the small confines of a bento box, though they’d work in a salad on a plate too. The rest of the bento looks nice too, with those yummy looking smoked duck breast slices, not to mention the olives and feta cheese. This would be quite low-carb bento; for people who need more energy, I’d add an onigiri or a bread roll or something on the side. (People watching their salt intake may want to omit or reduce the olives and/or feta cheese here.)

Tip: To make cucumber ribbons, just draw a vegetable peeler straight down the length of a cucumber a T-shaped peeler works better than the vertical type for this task. You can make ribbons from any long, straight vegetable this way - try carrots, zucchini, long white radish, and so on. If you want the cucumber ribbons to be less watery and more flexible, sprinkle them with a tiny bit of salt and leave for a few minutes, then pat dry with paper towels.

Look out for another Great Bento Idea next week!

(If you want your idea to catch my eye by the way, the best way is to join the Just Bento or Just Bento Bento Gear groups on Flickr and post them there. Don’t forget to post a link to your blog in the description if you have one.)

This week’s Great Bento Idea comes to us from MJ, who posts her bento photos on Flickr. She says that some of her bentos are “….thought out, some thrown together in 5 minutes while half asleep. Some I even get to eat myself.” I can relate to that! She has a quirky sense of humor too - check out this eyeful bento for instance. It just goes to show that there’s no limit to what you can do in a bento box.

I particularly like this salad bento because of the cucumber ribbons. They are simple to make but, arranged the way they are they make make the whole bento look quite elegant, without a whole lot of effort. I think that the ribbons work particularly well in the small confines of a bento box, though they’d work in a salad on a plate too. The rest of the bento looks nice too, with those yummy looking smoked duck breast slices, not to mention the olives and feta cheese. This would be quite low-carb bento; for people who need more energy, I’d add an onigiri or a bread roll or something on the side. (People watching their salt intake may want to omit or reduce the olives and/or feta cheese here.)

Tip: To make cucumber ribbons, just draw a vegetable peeler straight down the length of a cucumber a T-shaped peeler works better than the vertical type for this task. You can make ribbons from any long, straight vegetable this way - try carrots, zucchini, long white radish, and so on. If you want the cucumber ribbons to be less watery and more flexible, sprinkle them with a tiny bit of salt and leave for a few minutes, then pat dry with paper towels.

Look out for another Great Bento Idea next week!

(If you want your idea to catch my eye by the way, the best way is to join the Just Bento or Just Bento Bento Gear groups on Flickr and post them there. Don’t forget to post a link to your blog in the description if you have one.)