A Tree Grows in Jooklyn Bento

A Tree Grows in Jooklyn Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Get it? Get it? Did you read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? Okay then. I know it doesn't look like a tree, but this tree is stylized. (Look at the other jook tree I made). This means that you must utilize your imagination for it to take shape. I made brown rice jook (see my method and recipe here) and decorated with char siu, cilantro and scallions. You can use chicken broth to flavor the soup, and add in aromatics like tiny dried shrimp. I also sometimes use shiitake mushrooms, leftover chicken, or even fish. It's also great to make your own broth using chicken or turkey bones. I packed this bento for MisterMan in his Lunchbots Thermal jar. A side box holds: satsuma mandarin, strawberry, blueberries, house pickled cucumbers and house marinated sweet baby bell peppers.

Black Rice Jook Thermal Bento

Black Rice Jook Thermal Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Have you eaten black rice? Also known as Forbidden Rice, it's received press lately for its high levels of antioxidants, on a par with blueberries. It has a nice, mild flavor, and a pleasing (to me) purplish color that is retained after cooking. I've used it to make jook before (see my method here), and this time I added sliced lup cheong (Chinese sausage), celery and broccoli stalks. You can also add chicken, mushrooms, fish, or whatever else you'd like. It's an easy meal to make: I used a ratio of 1 cup of rice to 8 cups of water (or broth). Simmer about an hour to 90 minutes, adding the rest of the ingredients for the last 30 minutes or so. I scattered chopping green onion on this serving packed in my Stanley thermal food jar, but you can also add cilantro, ginger, pepper, chili oil, even shoyu as your taste dictates. It's another kind of comfort food that's especially satisfying on these cold wintry days. I sent along a side box containing a satsuma mandarin, some grape tomatoes, and the ever-present mini-cups of home-pickled cucumbers and fermented sauerkraut. Simple and fast, yet hearty. I had some for lunch myself, too. ^_^

Added to What's For Lunch.

Easter Egg and Jook Bento

Easter Egg and Jook Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Got the inspiration for today's bento from my very own scratchy throat and cough. The cough is especially annoying, and has been lingering for a few days now. I can tell it's getting better when I can get through a whole sentence without suddenly hacking off to the side for a couple minutes. I made jook for myself, really, but the kids love it too so I packed some for them (my basic jook recipe is here). For this batch I used white and brown rice, a mixture of organic chicken broth and water, and added baby spinach, green onion and steamed wild cod fillet into the bubbling soup. I also drizzled hot chili oil on top of mine but omitted for the kids. I packed it in our trusty Stanley thermal food jar so it'll be nice and toasty come lunchtime. He also gets a side box filled with a half mandarin, strawberry, grapes, blackberry, steamed broccoli and a cute little quail egg chick. I'd attempted to make the zig-zag egg cut before without success, so I boiled a few eggs in case I encountered trouble. This time it worked beautifully the first try. I used a sharp razor blade to make each tiny individual cut, and then pulled the two halves apart gently. If you have a thin blade paring knife, you could use that as well. Make sure your egg is boiled completely hard, to make it easier. I added nori eyes and a carrot beak, and now the little chickie is ready to pop out and be eaten!

Hot Jook Thermal Bento

Hot Jook Preschool Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Double bento today for my son and daughter are nearly identical. They both get true comfort food: black/white rice jook with turkey and ginger, green onion scattered on top. I packed them in thermal food jars: the Stanley jar which you've seen me use before many times (and which I recommend highly) and the Thermos brand Hello Kitty jar which I hadn't used before. First thing I noticed is that the Thermos is much lighter. Of course, it is smaller (I have the 10 oz version), but also the lid is plastic and there seems to be quite a bit of heat loss through the lid. Immediately after filling the jar and closing the lid, I could feel it getting warm right away. The Stanley has a double lid: an inner plastic screw lid which is set inside the jar, and an outer plastic-lined metal cap which can be used as a bowl. If there is heat loss through the inner lid, it's not detectable through the outer lid, as fas as I could tell. I tested the Hello Kitty jar with boiling water, and found that the temperature of the water began dropping within an hour after sealing. That was pretty disappointing to me. We'll see what my preschooler says. Both kids toted along a side bento filled with strawberry, grapes, cara cara wedges, broccoli and carrots.

Many of you may be following the terrible events unfolding in Japan following Friday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake; the resulting tsunami devastated towns and destroyed thousands of lives. The people of Japan face a long journey towards healing and rebuilding, even while aftershocks still rock the country and rescuers continue to search for survivors. I and many fellow bento-bloggers have been keeping up with real-time developments via @makiwi on twitter, who has embarked on a labor of love to translate and update the rest of us on the news from Japan, seemingly without sleep. If you are looking for a way to help, please consider making donations to The Red Cross at IFRC.org or Doctors Without Borders at doctorswithoutborders.org.

Bento Side With Black Rice Jook

Bento Side To Go With Jook, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

I'm only showing part of MisterMan's bento today. It includes pomelo (or jabong), cherries and carrots. The rest of it will be packed in the thermal jar you see in the background, right before he gets in the car to go to school. It's not the greatest container for keeping food warm, but I tested it with boiling water and it stayed pretty hot after 3 hours. Today I made jook, but this time I used black (Forbidden) rice to see if it was possible, and if so, how it would turn out. Perhaps you've read recently about the health benefits being attributed to black rice (high in iron and fiber, rich in antioxidants, cancer-fighting, improves memory, etc). Well, I've seen people make black rice pudding, and I thought it would be cool to make black rice jook. I actually made two different batches; one with black and white mixed in a 3:1 ratio, and one with black rice alone. I discovered that the white rice is necessary to provide the glutinous thickness we love about congee. The batch with black rice only kind of turned out like thin rice gruel, as you can see from the picture.

I wish I had taken a picture of the other batch to compare, but that got eaten up quick. I even cooked it longer than usual (about 2 hours), to see if it would eventually become thick and creamy. Nope. Anyway, it's still good -- I added roast duck, baby bok choy and green onions to give it flavor. It's cool how it came out very black. Even after rinsing the rice thoroughly, the black color is released when the rice breaks apart, and you can see it's a regular white color inside the grain. If you try it, don't forget to add some white rice. The resulting jook looks more purplish too; very cool-looking! In case you are interested, my basic jook recipe is here.

Basic Jook Recipe
1C rice
6C water (or more -- up to 8C, depending on how thin you like it)
2C broth (chicken or vegetable -- you can also increase the broth instead if you like)
Diced kabocha (as much as you like)

Bring rice and liquids to a bubbling simmer, and maintain, stirring occasionally, until soup is of desired consistency. About an hour. Add the diced kabocha near the end of cooking, to soften in the soup about 20 minutes or so (or less, if you like it firmer). Add salt to taste. Other things to add: chicken / turkey / duck bones with meat (remove bones after cooking), shiitake mushrooms, salted pork, salted salmon, green onions.

Christmas Tree Jook and Rudolph Bento

Christmas Tree Jook Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Since tomorrow is December first, I decided to make a first Christmas-themed bento set. I made two, in fact! MisterMan gets turkey jook, made using the Thanksgiving turkey carcass to make turkey stock. I tossed the thigh bones in as well, and at the end of the hour of simmering, the meat had all fallen off the bones and the broth was nice and flavorful. I used only half the carcass, so there's one more batch to go. I have to admit I love turkey jook -- much more so than the actual turkey it began with. Personally I like to throw in ginger, scallion and garlic chili paste to give it a tasty kick. For the kids I keep it more mild. I did sprinkle on some chopped green onion before I realized it landed in kind of a tree formation. Okay, I rearranged a little, and added a kabocha star, but I'm calling it a Christmas tree bento.

The fruit and veggie side dish is the top tier of this thermal bento. I gave him a satsuma mandarin, some pan-fried kabocha, broccoli and a grape. It's kind of a small box.

For TinySprite, I turned a char siu bao into Rudolph with carved carrot antler, grape eyes and a radish nose. She also got some pan-fried kabocha, steamed broccoli and sliced kiwi. Happy December, and welcome to the Christmas season!

A Tree Grows In Jook Bento

A Tree Grows In Jook Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Super duper easy bento again; woo! Today I made brown rice jook, which entails all of cooking some rice in a bunch of water for a really long time. I actually tried using the "porridge" setting on my Zojirushi, but it wasn't nearly long enough. Maybe because I used brown rice instead of white. I was afraid the brown rice just wouldn't get mushy at all, but after transferring the half-cooked jook to the stovetop and cooking for another hour or so, it really did get nice and creamy. I added Chinese sausage (lup cheong) and shiitake to mine, which added lots of flavor. You can also add fish, chicken, turkey, duck, or pretty much whatever you desire; and instead of water you could also use chicken or other stock. After ladling it into the green thermal container which I am really liking a lot these days, it looked pretty blah. So I added some shiitake mushrooms and chopped green onions in a tree design. The top tier bowl contains the fruits and veggies: grapes, strawberry, raspberries, tomatoes, broccoli and pink carrot flower. The bowl sits just under the lid, which screws on to secure both sections tightly. You don't even need a lunch tote since the lid has a built-in handle. How great is that?

Jook and Taiyaki Thermal Bento

Jook Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Today's bento showcases a couple new things I got during New Year festivities, both in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We spent the past 4 day weekend roadtripping to L.A. to visit with family for New Year's and Valentines celebrations, and managed to slip in a bit of shopping too ^_^ !

First, notice the cute froggie thermal bento! I finally got one, since I've seen a few other bloggers use it, and it turned out to be perfect for this jook bento. I put jook (congee/rice porridge) in the thermal part with chopped scallions, and mixed stir-fried veggies in the upper smaller container. This little container has a lid of its own. You set it in the thermal and it sits on top; there's a larger screwtop handled lid which goes on top of it all.

Second, you'll notice his fruit box contains a new item: taiyaki! Along with mandarin, grapes and strawberry there lies a fish pancake, traditionally filled with red bean paste. I got a new taiyaki pan at Marukai in L.A.'s Little Tokyo last weekend, and couldn't wait to try it out! I used a whole wheat multigrain waffle batter and cooked it stovetop on my gas flame. It was pretty easy! I didn't expect it to go that well, so wasn't even prepared with fillings. But I did try chocolate, and that was gooood. I wasn't sure how much I could use without it exploding, but it turns out that the batter doesn't expand that much so I could have used a lot more fillings. I'll try that next time for sure. Oh, I almost forgot, can taiyaki count as pancake for Shrove Tuesday / Pancake Day?

Back to the bento routine after a long, fun weekend off!