I might be the main gardener and DIYer in the family but I am very spoilt as my husband is definitely the main cook! Not only does he cook nearly every night, he also likes to make rather elaborate meals, like our Bento Box meals. So he's written a guest post for the blog to show one of his most recent creations -
Now that we’ve got some veggies growing in the garden, it’s
time for the best part, eating them! One of the first trips away we took
together was to Japan, a country with a tradition of great food. One of our
favourite meals is a Bento Box, which is great for entertaining. Our Bento Boxes were given to us by the in-laws, and they bought them here -
I tend not to experiment with Bento Boxes, rather I cook
four dishes that I have previously done individually. That way you know that
each of the four dishes will be good in their own right, and you have a better
idea of how to time each dish. I nearly always have a salad, so that it can be
made and set aside, and a rice or a noodle dish. For this meal, I also made
chicken and chive rolls in soy and maple syrup, and fried prawn balls with
sweet and sour dipping sauce. I combine this with garlic steak rice and a crab
and mango salad.
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| Garden produce - lovely chilli, herbs, capsicum |
So to start, here are some of the ingredients for the salad
that we grew in the garden, including thai basil, a capsicum, 5 chillies and
coriander. Julienne (slice long and thin) the chillies and capsicum, then
coarsely chop the basil and coriander.
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| Supermarket ingredients - hopefully soon we will have limes growing too |
These are the ingredients that I bought from the
supermarket. I julienned 4 kaffir lime leaves and the mango, then coarsely chop
the seafood extender (you can use fresh crab meat if you want to be fancy, tofu
for a vegetarian salad). Put it all in together, squeeze out the juice of the
lime and put it in the fridge for later. I then put the rice onto cook, and
when it’s ready, I rinse it in cold water in the colander and leave it there
for later. I got this recipe from the Australia Masterchef series 3 cookbook.
(editor note - he has tweaked the salad recipe a little, but click on the link for the general recipe)
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| Mango and seafood salad ready to eat - yum! |
The next dish to start on is the chicken and chive rolls.
This recipe comes from a book that’s very special to me. It was written by the
Aunt of my PhD student, who gave it to me as a present for supervising her
before she went to Japan. It had just been translated into English, which is a
little bit helpful. Find it here -
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| Ingredients for the chicken and chive rolls - another ingredient which will soon be available from the garden |
So, to start with you need some chicken thighs and chives. I
sliced the thighs and opened them out, then rolled them around the chives, securing
them using toothpicks. I then set these aside in a bowl and mix equal volumes
of cornflour and water for later.
Next, the prawn balls. This recipe is from a book we bought
on another holiday, when we went to China. It’s not Japanese, but it tastes
great so what the heck. Just take 2 slices of bacon, ½ a kilo of green prawns
and six water chestnuts and cut them into pieces as fine as possible. Mix them
with a teaspoon of sugar, ½ a teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch,
then cover the bowl and put them into the fridge until later.
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| Ingredients for the prawn balls |
Then, I return to the garlic steak rice, this recipe is also
in the Simply Japanese book. Slice four cloves of garlic and place in a large
frying pan with olive oil on high until fragrant. Take out the garlic, then
cook a New York cut steak for 3 minutes onto each side. Remove and slice
thinly. When ready, usually after the chicken and chive rolls are cooked, put
the steak, garlic and rice back into the frying pan with a lug of butter and
soy sauce to taste.
Now, going back to the chicken and chive rolls, I deep fry
in the electric wok. The temperature is to be 180oC, I re-mix the
cornstarch and water, dip the chicken and chive rolls into them and then into
the deep fryer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, I put 2 tablespoons sake, 2 ½
tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup into a frypan on low
heat. When they’re cooked, I transfer them into the sauce and coat them as much
as I can, before removing the toothpicks and slicing them thickly.
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| Prawn ball mix |
When they’re done, I take out the prawn mixture and roll
about 2-3 tablespoons of the mixture into a ball and then roll them over
breadcrumbs to coat. I turn the temperature in the wok to 190OC and
fry the prawn balls for 3 minutes each, usually I need to do two batches. While
they’re cooking, I put all the ingredients for the garlic steak rice into the
pan on moderate to high heat. I get the salad out and start filling the Bento
Box with the salad, then the chicken and chive rolls, then the garlic steak and
finally the prawn balls. Turned out not too bad.
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| The final product - four delicious dishes which were polished off pretty quickly! |
