One more day to Mother’s Day, why not show your love by whipping something special in the kitchen?

Using a wide variety of Japanese products at Isetan Supermarket, I prepared this Panda Bento lunchbox.

Some of you may have seen my live demo session last week at Isetan Scotts, it was really awesome to be up close with everyone and I hope you had fun seeing how the homely dishes can be easily prepared and enjoyed the food sampling!

Below are the recipes for this cute Panda bento.

All ingredients used in this recipe can be found at Isetan Supermarket.

Tamagoyaki

Ingredients

• 2 Eggs (Mangetsu Noukou)
• 10ml Shiro Dashi
• 10ml Water
• 1 tsp Caster Sugar

Method

1. Crack eggs into a non-reactive bowl. Add shiro dashi, sugar and water. Mix well. Try not to introduce any air into the egg mixture as air bubbles in the egg will hamper achieving a smooth egg roll.
2. Pour out a layer of egg mixture in the tamagoyaki pan and cook over low heat. Cover the pan when cooking to ensure even cooking of the egg.
3. When cooked until the edges are slightly firm, roll the egg from top end towards yourself. Push the egg roll to the top of the pan.
4. Pour in another layer of egg mixture and cook the second layer. When slightly firm, roll it up together with the first egg roll and push the combined roll to the top. Repeat until all the egg mixture is used up.
5. Serve.

Basic Dashi stock

• Approx 5 inch long Kombu Seaweed, with slits cut along the sides (Yamada Saomae Kombu)
• 400ml Water
• 3g Shaved Bonito Flakes, Katusobushi (Marutomo Hana Katsuo)

Method

1. In a pot, soak kombu in water for 15-30 minutes.
2. Over low heat, bring kombu and water to a boil and let simmer for 1-2 minutes.
3. Take off heat and remove kombu.
4. Add in bonito flakes and bring to a boil.
5. Simmer for 3-4 minutes on low heat.
6. Sieve out all the solid ingredients and set stock aside to cool.
7. Serve.

Basic Miso Soup

Ingredients

• Approx 2 cups of Silken tofu and or vegetables
• 450ml Dashi Broth
• 1.5 Tbsp Miso (Marumo Aoki Mutenka Shiro)
• you may add thinly slice pork meat (Momoiro Pork Shabu Shabu ) if you like
• spring onions or parsley (optional)

Method

1. Bring dashi stock to boil, add in vegetables.
2. Add meat if you like.
3. Lower the heat
4. Put in 1.5 Tbsp Miso into strainer and mix using chopsticks to dissolve the miso
5. Add tofu and mix gently.
6. Turn off heat and serve.

Stir Fry Momoiro Japanese Pork

Ingredients

• Approx 5-6 slices of Momoiro Japanese Pork
• garlic clove 1 pc, minced
• onion, 1 Tbsp
• Nissin cooking oil
• 1 tsp japanese soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1 tsp cooking sake

Method

1. Heat frypan. Add about 1 tsp of cooking oil, and fry garlic and onion until garlic aroma is released and slightly brown and onions are slightly brown and caramelised.
2. Add in sliced pork and sauteed quickly until about 80% cookied.
3. Add in soysauce, mirin and sake.
4. Stir fry until seasoning coats meat evenly and pork is cooked.
5. Serve

Panda Riceball

Ingredients

• Japanese rice approx 90-100g
• seaweed 1/2 sheet
• Furikake (optional)

Method

1. Using cling wrap, shape one large round rice ball. You may wrap some furikake inside the riceball if you like.
2. Then make a smaller rice ball, closer to oblong shape for Panda’s body.
3. Make 2 small round rice balls, and 4 smaller pieces of rice balls for the ears and limbs.
4. Trim 6 roundish pieces of sushi seaweed.
5. Wrap the small riceballs from step 3 with the sushi seaweed. You could make slits around to help the seaweed adhere better to the riceball. And rewrap inside the cling wrap to shape it.
6. Assemble in the bento box together with the side dishes such as the tamagoyaki and stir-fry pork, fresh lettuce, cherry tomato, mizuna vegetables. Recommend to drizzle some Kewpie Japanese sesame sauce on the mizuna salad – so yummy and easy to whip up.

 Isetan Supermarket

Website https://www.isetan.com.sg/ 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Isetan.sg/ 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/isetansg/ 

Locations:

Isetan Scotts Supermarket
350 Orchard Road, Basement
Shaw House, Singapore 238868
Operating hours: Sun to Thur | 10am – 9pm
Fri, Sat & eve of PH | 10am – 9.30pm

Isetan Jurong East Supermarket
3 Gateway Drive, Basement
Westgate, Singapore 608532
Operating hours: Sun to Thurs | 10am – 9pm
Fri, Sat & eve of PH | 10am – 9.30pm
*selected items are not available at Isetan Jurong East Supermarket

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Fuji san Bento today! I really miss Japan so much and can’t wait to be back.

Will be heading back to Japan in Nov, am looking forward! Inspired by my Fuji san tissue holder that I have in my bag, I decided to make this Fuji san Bento.

Its so simple, and cute too right?

Since I am planning to go back during the autumn season, I also prepared a more autumn feel bento today.

Do you know Mount Fuji? Also known by its endearing name – Fuji san literally translated from its Japanese name 富士山.

To make Fuji san onigiri in this bento, I coloured the rice blue with some blue pea flower extract. Shape tightly into a compact triangular shape for the rice balls, and with the addition of sushi seaweed cut freehand and ham pieces to complete the character.

Its so easy to make!

My husband even said, “wow today you are fast in preparing your lunchbox” :P haha. 

In line with the autumn feel, I packed in a beautiful autumn nerikiri wagashi, simmered pumpkin with chicken and shiitake mushrooms, tamagoyaki, mizuna vegetables and a cherry tomato.

Packed my Fuji san bento into one of my most prized lacquered magewappa bento box made by Japanese craftsman Yoshinobu Shibata and Masahisa Shibata from the Asakusa Magewappa Store.

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Minions Deco Sushi!

Stuart! Why are you in my lunch box? hahahahh

I even placed my guitar chopstick rest in the bento box, to match the theme. Everyone remembers Stuart and his guitar (just like Bob and his teddy Tim).

Minions Deco Sushi has been on my to-do list for the longest time. So glad I did it!

Minions fever over yet? I certainly hope not~ And hope you have fun checking out this cute Minions Deco Sushi creation.

It has been about 2 years since my certification with the Tokyo Sushi Academy for their Japan Sushi Instructor Association.

Since then, it has been a fulfilling journey, from learning how to make deco sushi rolls (known as kazarimakisushi in Japanese) to taking the instructor exams, creating my own original recipes like this one, and writing my own deco sushi cookbook (titled Kawaii Deco Sushi) that was published just less than 2 months back.

Thank you for the support always :)

For this Minions Deco Sushi, lets take a look at the sushi roll before cutting it up!

Divided the sushi roll into four equal pieces.

What is missing are the eyes and mouth which I added using some seaweed cut freehand.

Packed two of them into my bento box with some vegetables and pan seared salmon fillet.

While these two were passed to a friend of mine who is a Minion fanatic. haha. I hope she likes them.

If you are also keen on making deco sushi, remember to check out my cookbook okie!

Promise you that this cookbook covers all the basic techniques with visual illustrations for each of the recipe steps! It will be fun!

Now its time to eat Stuart :P haha

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Sanrio Toast Foodart Bento!

Earlier on I made Snoopy Toast foodart, this round its Sanrio! Made a total of 5 Sanrio characters, do you recognise them?

These toast are great not just for bento but also can be served at parties, picnics etc. They are cute and not difficult to make at all.

Recently after dining at Zafferano, trying out their new Brunch Menu, I fell in love with Burrata cheese. Burrata is actually fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream.

I love the creaminess texture and it does not come across as overly rich but yet at the same time so satisfying.

So yesterday I went shopping for some Burrata and spotted one last jar at Cold Storage (Great World City). I immediately grab some of that, a loaf of fresh batard bread and made this Sanrio toast foodart bento. I was contemplating whether to make Sanrio or Winnie the Pooh, but went with Sanrio in the end.

The characters are Hello Kitty, My Melody, Cinnamoroll, Keroppi and Gudetama. Most are amongst the classic Sanrio characters, except Gudetama which is quite a new (and very popular) character.

I had so much fun making them.

Would love to make more others but ran out of time and also wouldn’t be able to finish eating them too.Hello Kitty – Burrata cheese, seaweed, corn kernal, cherry tomatoes, mizuna vegetables, butter, salt and pepper to taste.

My Melody – Japanese cucumber, ham, burrata cheese, seaweed, corn kernel, pineapple, green pea,  butter, salt and pepper to taste. Cinnamoroll – Cherry tomatoes, burrata cheese, picnic ham, seaweed, butter, salt and pepper to taste

Keroppi – mashed edamame beans, slice cheese, salsa salad, seaweed, picnic ham

Gudetama – mizuna vegetables, fried quail egg, butter, salt and pepper to taste.

This Sanrio Toast Foodart Bento is just too fun to make and yummy. Hope this will give you some ideas for your bento lunch too!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Kitty Pasta Bento.

Don’t worry! There is no real kitty or any feline characters harmed in making this pasta lunch :P haha

I simply made some cute kitty characters from hard boiled quail eggs for my pasta bento.

Homemade clams vongole~ I love clams. Do you too?

Spotted some fresh looking white clams at the supermarket over the weekend and decided to make my own pasta at home. ClamsVongole is an Italian classic pasta dish with clams cooked in white wine sauce. Its very yummy!

You might also find this bento familiar? A slight variation from my earlier Kitty Udon Bento.

This time I made one kitty lying with the tummy up ;) 

As mentioned, the kitty characters were made from hard boiled quail eggs. A simple 3 ingredients design:

• quail eggs hard boiled (head, body, hands, legs, tail)
• seaweed (black patch, face features)
• pink kamaboko (inner ears)

To cook Clams Vongole, The Silver Chef gives very good tips and instructions here.

Have a good week ahead!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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My very first Garfield Bento!

Made this something back but have not had the time to update my blog.

Garfield is always quite greedy right? heheh so here I made his favourite food ‘Pizza’ which is actually grilled tofu! Topped with melted cheese ham and cherry tomatoes slices.

I must say that Garfield was a lot more popular when I was younger. Not sure if the kids these days would even know Garfield?

To make Garfield, I shaped some orange coloured rice – made by mixing rice with orange furikake, into the oval and smaller triangular pieces for the head and ears respectively.

The eyes were made from hard boiled quail egg, which has been halved.

The cheeks and nose were cheddar cheese slice and a small piece of pink kamaboko.

And seaweed cut freehand for the rest of the details!

Am also glad that I could use my fast food bento food picks in the bento to match the theme.

Bought them sometime back. If you are interested, I got them from Bento & co.

So dont worry, this Garfield bento does not actually contain real fast food :) all healthy and homemade!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Beauty and the Beast Bento.

I am sure many are familiar with this well known French fairytale, Beauty and the Beast.

Popularised by Disney animation remake in 1991 based on this classic fairytale, as well as several other television/films spin offs.

Continuing my fairytale bento series, I decided to make this Beauty and the Beast bento.

In the story, Belle (the head strong village girl) ends up falling in love with the Beast, who is actually a prince fallen under a spell. Their true love transforms the Beast back to his original self and of course… they lived happily ever after :D

In the Disney animation, I fondly remembered some of the other characters including  Lumière the candlestick, Cogsworth the clock, Mrs. Potts the teapot, and her son Chip the teacup.

They were actually all the prince’s servants, also fallen under the spell and transformed into household objects.

I did not have time to make so many characters, so I only made Cogsworth the clock. Cogsworth is actually minced meat patty with its details added on using slice cheddar cheese and seaweed.

To represent Mrs Potts the teapot and her son, I used little rement pieces to decorate the bento.

Belle (Beauty) and the prince (beast) were mainly made out of riceball, with details added on including egg sheet (for hair, beard etc), seaweed (eyes, mouth), pink kamaboko (cheeks), seaweed and cheese (horns). 

Bento side dishes included sautéed French beans with carrots, lettuce and cherry tomatoes. I also cooked a pot of black chicken herbal soup (not pictured) to pack along for a wholesome lunch.

Packed today’s Beauty and the Beast bento in my magewappa box from Bento & co. The smaller bento box is from Afternoon Tea Japan.

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Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Hello Kitty Pancakes Bento!

Dining in or bento take away for you? Hehee, presenting two possible pancakes presentation with Hello Kitty theme.

I actually lost track of when was the last time I actually used this Hello Kitty pancake pan.

In fact, I don’t even think I actually posted on my blog on this before.

To be used only over gas stove, this non stick hello kitty pan makes pretty awesome Hello Kitty shaped pancakes.

Actually my recipe today is more hotcake than pancakes. While to most people outside Japan, hotcakes and pancakes seem to mean the same thing, they are actually quite different for Japanese.

Hotcakes are more fluffy and usually sweeter with the addition of egg, milk and sugar in its batter. Hotcakes are also often enjoyed with maple syrup or other sweet toppings etc. While pancakes are usually not as eggy in taste and less sweet in its batter. It can be enjoyed more with breakfast items like hotdogs and bacon.

For my Hello Kitty hotcakes, I paired them with fresh fruits including kiwi and raspberries. And two homemade chocolate macarons.

As I have some additional batter left, I divided the batter and added a little colour and made rainbow coloured mini pancakes (or hotcakes).

The ribbon mark was made using my customised branding iron from Japan at Kappabashi street in Asakusa.

Did you also noticed the super cute mini Hello Kitty sausages? I found them at AEON supermarket in Hong Kong and was so super thrilled!

They are so cute I had to buy a couple of packs home.

I hope you like today’s breakfast creation!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Teddy Bear Omurice Bento.

Or more accurately egg wrapped rice :D bento. A simple design, variation from my Hello Kitty Omurice Bento made sometime back.

I cooked a pot of Watercress pork ribs soup to warm the tummy for lunch, so decided to pack a small bento to go with my soup.

This is easy bento to make, just utilitise some of the cute cutters that you have.

A similar recipe to make the deco omelette egg sheet is also shared in my Kawaii Bento cookbook. 

Here is how to make this deco omelette:

• 2 eggs
• butter
• 0.5tsp corn starch, dissolved with a little water
• cutters

1. Separate one egg white from the eggs. Add in the dissolved corn starch and mix well. Strain the mixture to remove the gooey parts of the egg white. Set aside
2. Mix the remaining yolk + 1 egg in a bowl. If there are a lot of bubbles, please strain to remove the bubbles.
3. Butter your frypan. Pour in the egg from step 2 and cook under low heat.
4. Turn off the heat when the ends are about 80% cooked. Let the remaining heat in the pan cook the egg for about 30secs or so.
5. Remove from pan and lay it on a cutting board. Using your cutters, cut out the shapes as desired.
6. Place the egg sheet again in the pan. Slowly scoop in the egg white mixture from step 1 into the cut outs.
7. Cook the egg again using low heat until the egg whites are cooked.
8. Remove. Wrap your rice with the deco egg sheet.

The side dishes for today’s teddy bear omurice bento included some sauteed prawns, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and blanched broccoli.

Prepared a cup of matcha latte with a deco latte sheet (deco cheat) haha. Loving these deco latte sheets. They are so cute right.

The Japanese words ‘がんばってね’ means go your best, a form of encouragement.

Here I am encouraging myself and you (reading this)! :) For me, I really hope that my newly launched cookbook – Kawaii Deco Sushi will do well. Please do read more about my new cookbook here and support me too!

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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This is my first (omg) SpongeBob bento.

I must say that I am more a Japanese anime person, so I havent quite got around to making this character, SpongeBob from the American animation television series SpongeBob SquarePants screened on Nickelodeon.

The series of course revolves around the the key character SpongeBob and his underwater friends including his bestie Patrick Star. Living in a sea pineapple, he has a pet snail named Gary and works as a cook at Krusty Krab, a diner known for their burgers.

Inspired by the really cool Pineapple flavoured Pretz sticks (gift from a good friend – Cheesie @cheesieland), and the pineapple chopsticks rest, I decided to make SpongeBob and Patrick Star Bento. 

Ingredients used for SpongeBob:

• rice + egg = body/hands/nose
• crabstick (white layer) = shirt
• crabstick (red layer) = red tie
• kanpyo (seasoned gourd) = brown pants
• rice + seaweed = shoes
• hard boiled egg + blue colouring +seaweed = eyes
• seaweed = mouth

Ingredients used for Patrick Star

• rice + pink sushi mix = body/arms
• egg white + seaweed = eyes
• seaweed = eyebrows/mouth

The side dishes for today’s SpongeBob Bento included sauteeed french beans with asparagus and carrots, pan seared tofu squares with shiitake mushrooms and some lettuce.

To match the theme, I also finally got to use my burger bento picks!

If you are a fan of SpongeBob SquarePants, I certainly hope you would like this bento and also be inspired to make one.

Follow my bento creations, food art and food styling journey on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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