I found this little Rubbermaid jewel at the store yesterday. It's not a "bento" box, but it's really really close. I spent a bit of time last night on dinner/lunches. I made gyoza, a family favorite. So many names around the world, but my kids call them dumplings. I put the recipe down at the bottom of this post. I also made kung pao chicken and jasmine rice. As you can see for Kenny's lunch I packed down rice in one compartment and formed a gyoza star on the top. The other compartment contains the remainder of the kung pao and the dipping sauce for the gyoza. For some color I added cherry tomatoes and rice candies for desert.
Chloe's new lap top lunch box came in yesterday. I was giddy with excitement. So, upper left hand corner is cottage cheese and strawberries, upper right hand corner is celery sticks and rice candy, bottom left is 3 "Chinese dumplings" on a bed of lettuce with tomatoes for color. The small container holds some dipping sauce, bottom right is jasmine rice. I managed to cut a rabbit shape out of some nori. I think I did very well considering I don't have any nori punches or fancy molds or picks. The bottle is filled with water.Gyoza
Gyoza Skins
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 cups diced cabbage
1/4 cup dice carrots
1/4 cup diced onion
1 clove of garlic chopped
1/2 lb ground pork
1 egg beaten
little dish of water
1 tbsp vegetable oil for cooking gyoza
To make dipping sauce mix 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar
Prepare filling: heat sesame oil over medium high heat in skillet. Cook together cabbage, carrots, onions, and garlic until vegetables are tender crisp. Add ground pork and egg and cook until done. Remove from heat.
Fill Wrappers:put approximately 1 tbsp filling in each wrapper. Moisten edges with water and proceed to pinch together. With the dough edges form and S shape and press into a pleat, continue to pleat until gyoza is sealed.
If You Want to Freeze for Later: Place formed gyoza on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer for several minutes, when gyoza is dry and hard, remove from cookie sheet and put in a ziploc bag or other storage container. When you desire to reheat the gyoza there is no need to defrost, simply cook the frozen gyoza as you would fresh gyoza.
Cooking Gyoza:Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a skillet that has a lid. Brown bottom of gyoza how you would like it. Add 1/4 cup of water to pan, it will billow steam up, cover the pan quickly before it evaporates. Cook gyoza until all the water is absorbed.
Cooked gyoza are a great addition to a bento box. They're delicious either hot or cold and kids like their little finger size dumplings they get for lunch.
1 comment:
So Fun! We got the full bento-box tour this morning on the way to school. :-) The girls were ooh-ing and aww-ing over Chloe's new lunch box masterpiece. I even got a request to get Kenzie one just like it...now if only she'd like the food you put inside it...? :-) Is it cheating if you put a twinkie inside one of the containers? :-) Hee-hee. That food looks so yummy, I may have to try a recipe or two.
A quote from Chloe this morning:
"Look, my Mom made a bunny shape!!! How did she DO that?!"
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