Thursday, July 8, 2010

Kimbap Summer Bento


Kimbap Summer Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.
I am often influenced by food tweets on twitter, and yesterday everyone seemed to be having Korean food. I saw a pic of kimbap go by, and clicked to find a recipe for making shoyu tuna kimbap. Well, I didn't have tuna but I did have sardines. Could I substitute? Before you go "eww", I have to say, it came out really good! I adapted a recipe by Maangchi I found here.

Make seasoned tuna flakes
1.Open a can of tuna and remove the oil or water. Put it on a heated pan and drizzle some sesame oil over it. Toss it and cook it for 2 minutes.
2.Add 1 tbs of soy sauce, ½ tbs of sugar, 1 clove of minced garlic, and 1 ts of ground black pepper.
3.Keep stirring for another 3 minutes.
4.Turn off the heat and add 1 chopped green onion, 2 ts of sesame oil and 1 tbs of toasted sesame seeds.

I also realized I didn't have avocados or pickled radish, but I did have cucumber and crab stick. After cooking the shoyu sardines, it smelled so good I ate some straight out of the pan. Yum. Even better rolled up. I put almost the entire roll in his bento, two-deep. This stainless steel bento is deep enough to accomodate pretty tall food. I separated the kimbap from the fruit with a piece of green leaf lettuce and placed a bunch of Rainier cherries, a lychee and a half homegrown apricot on the side. There is shoyu in the yellow container. I used a dipping container instead of a squirt bottle so that he wouldn't have to squirt the shoyu all over the rest of the food. So good, quick and easy!

19 comments:

  1. Looks beautiful! I always love when experiments end well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh wow!! This is perfect! I'm going to show this to my mom tomorrow morning and tell her she can try sardines/tuna in her kimbap! Mmmm... mouth is watering now..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shannon, thanks! Me too, whew. :)

    Really, thanks Chantale! Let me know if she's horrified by my substitution and tell her I'm sorry! Haha!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Saba Man loves sardines! I'm going to try too!

    Looks wonderful and those cute little carrot blossoms...well they're so cute!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I like to try kimpab ;) But with tuna, because I love tuna.
    Your bento looks really summery ;) And delicious ^-^

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Debra, I love sardines too! But always afraid to offend someone with the distinctive aroma. Still worth it though, heh.

    Thanks Lil'chan! I think you would love shoyu tuna kimbap. Do hope you can try. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Delish and what a great idea! My mom used to always cook sardines and kakuma with shoyu and sugar, which we would eat over hot rice. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Delish and such a great idea! My mom used to cook sardines and kakuma with shoyu and sugar when we were kids. We used to eat it over hot rice. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Woh, excellent kimbap--they have such a pleasing, plump, neat look! As usual your fruit and veggies are so happy, fresh and pretty--a joy to see. The sardine recipe is a must try...they are so amazingly healthful :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I think the sardines were a great idea for a substitution. My dad eats them all the time. This time of year (hurricane season) we always stock up on canned goods like sardines and tuna.

    We make kimbap all the time (my daughter's request)or we go to our Asian grocer for it on Saturdays. Yours looks great, I love the recipe! I have to learn how to make carrots look like yours. Beautiful! My daughter is really liking the lychees that we got at the farmer's market!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Susan, never heard of eating sardines that way. Sounds interesting! Thanks!

    Thanks Bentobird! True sardines are healthier... for kimbap, the fatter and more fillings the better, right?

    Lyndsey, thanks. Sardines I think may be an acquired taste but I'm with you; they're good for you and worth adding to your diet. Awesome score on the lychee bounty; stock up while you can!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Those eensy little carrot blossoms are especially lovely. Can I ask what kind of box this is? I've been on the lookout for a deep-ish box.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is an EcoLunch stainless steel box. It comes with a small round inner container with a plastic lid too. I love it!

    http://ecolunchboxes.com/product_boxoval.html

    ReplyDelete
  14. very cute! just one quick question... where did you get the cute mameshiba dog bean toy! =)

    ReplyDelete
  15. The yellow lion inside the bento? It's a food pick. :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. yum. i think i am on record with respect to my kimbap obsession, and this looks like one more variety i will need to try asap!!

    ReplyDelete