Tanuki no Bento!

Monday, April 16th, 2007

Learning new things everyday: Tanuki Udon, etc!

I've been randomly surfing for the past half hour, and I came upon this particular article which discussed certain types of udon. Now, I do know that there are lots of udon types and udon dishes out there, but what piqued my interest the most was the one known as Tanuki Udon. Hehe... and yes, I like the sounds of it for obvious reasons... and wouldn't it be cool if the owner of Tanuki no Bento actually learned how to make Tanuki Udon? Haha!! Anyway, moving on.

Besides being a sort-of-namesake for me, descriptions of the dish also make it sound like it's pretty easy to make. According to Japan Travel Guide:

The Tanuki Udon mainly consists of deep-fried and sliced fish sausages known as Naruto. These deep fried Narutos are then placed on the boiled Udon with slivers of leek for added color and flavor. Vegetables can also be sliced and placed atop the Udon for a more healthy variety.

I like the sounds of it since I'm pretty fond of naruto anyway, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who has seen my past entries will see this. Lol. Mmm... fried naruto...

Then, there's the other description which includes the nice, crispy bits left from your tempura dish (again stuff that I love):

Ingredients for Tanuki Udon:

* Naruto
* Tenkatsu: crispy pieces that are left when deep frying tenpura. If not available, you can cut some leek, mix it with tenpura batter and deep fry it.
* Leek or green onion

As for how the thing looks like...
( How it's supposed to look like, according to various sources )

Looks simple enough doesn't it? Now if I only knew how to make the most important part of it all: the broth! Lol. I have no idea about the type/brand of sauce that you have to use when making udon. Now I really should get myself a Nintendo DS and a copy of Cooking Mama so that I can find out! XD

Anyway, on a closing note, googling for pictures of the tanuki udon has also brought me this adorable thing from Yamacon...

Needless to say, it tickles me pink. XD

mood:

amused

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

K's first attempt at making mashed potatoes...

Well, here we go. I'm finally getting around to posting old bento pics that I've taken so were we go!

As the title suggests, the star of this bento is actually the sorry-looking mashed potatoes. Hehehe... I've actually tried making mashed potatoes before, but the VERY first attempt ended up being potato SOUP because I placed too much milk in the whole thing. ^^;;; I'm also loathe with the idea of buying those mix-in-hot-water types of instant mashed potatoes at the grocery so I insist on making my own, stubborn oaf that I am.

Anyway, the bento is composed of tamagoyaki, hotdogs, yet another of K's vegetable-with-cinammon stirfrys, and then, mashed potatoes with cheese. No gravy. Just quickmelt cheese.

The container below shows servings for two people. My boyfriends and I ate from the same bento that day since I got to join him for lunch. ^_^

Meanwhile, a single serving which I had for dinner that day, looked like this:

Messy-looking as it is, I'm actually proud of the potatoes since the consistency came out just right.

The potato recipe
Anyway, it's made of a batch of marble potatoes (the tiny ones). I chose those since they cook a lot quicker and more evenly. I was afraid that I'd be boiling the potato for an hour and I'd STILL end up with a raw core in the end, if I used one of those big potatoes...

Anyway, I washed each tiny potato carefully, then boiled it in water which was some salt and a laurel leaf. Once it's cooked, I mashed it all up (yup, with the skin on), seasoned with salt and pepper and added a small amount of milk to make it creamy. On a whim though, I took about 4 tablespoons of water and placed some crushed rosemary in it. Then I heated the water in the microwave and ended up with rosemary tea. I let it cool as I mashed and mixed the potatoes, then when the the rosemary has steeped enough, I poured it into the mashed potatoes (I used a sieve to get the rosemary bits out, of course). Then, top with cheese!^__^ I thought it was actually pretty nice, despite realizing much later, that I should have had gravy and butter somewhere in the recipe. XD

( more photos )

mood: awake

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

Asparagus Stir-Fry Bento

My boyfriend recently requested for vegetables in his bento, so I decided to make this asparagus stir-fry that he likes. It's a pretty simple recipe that I sort of made on the fly, and, well, he likes it so I took note of it so I can do it again.

In the meantime, I made the mistake of putting okonomiyaki furikake on top of the whole thing. It looked yummy in real life, but I didn't realize that it would look fuzzy in the pictures and it would sort of look like mold... O_O;;

Speaking of okonomiyaki furikake, I used it a couple of nights ago to make onigiri. So, mixing it with mayo, tonkatsu sauce and a bit of salt and pepper on plain rice, it sort of tasted like okonomiyaki, except in riceball form. Hehe... Forgot to take pics though, so you'll have to take my word for it for now.

In any case, here's my bento which is too shy to reveal its fuzzy contents (plus the rice was too plain). It shows it's chocolate-filled marshmallows instead.

( 2 pics of contents + recipe under the cut )

(4 comments | Leave a comment)