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

The post Panda Bento Recipe – Isetan Supermarket appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

Panda Quail Eggs for my bento.

Decided to make a simple yaki-udon bento today, and the cute factor are the pandas!

Actually I wanted a one-dish item today, and yaki udon is one perfect menu choice. Just throw in all the ingredients, followed by the noodles and sauteed in a pan. Yummy!

Taking inspiration from my Panda chopstick rest, I made the panda quail egg characters.

One facing up and one lying on the stomach with its butt up. :P

It was a little tricky wrapping the egg parts with seaweed but still quite okay. I did regret not using black beans instead. Might have been much easier.

Packed the fried noodles in my round enamelware bento box. The brand is Noda Horo.

Loving Noda Horo’s high quality products and affordability. I bought mine in Japan and heard from my Japanese friends that this brand is well known and popular amongst the homemakers.

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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I made a cute Panda sandwich bento today!

A simple but kawaii sandwich using  Arnest’s Pan Pop-Up bread cutter that I got quite some time back. ‘Pan’ in Japanese means bread, and in this case, this super convenient cutter cutes the sandwich into the shapes, with little imprint marks for the characters and with a little easy maneuvering, the sandwich charcter will ‘pop-up’!

If you are not such a fan of bread bento, then perhaps this may not be so good for you. But if you are (or your child is), this could be quite a fun addition to your bento tools. It is also great for parties.

The kit comes with two parts, the brown cutter is for the shape cut out on the slice bread. It also comes with some convenient cutters of a bow-tie, heart and crown.

The white pieces are the different inprints for the characters which you just have to press on the slice bread after cutting.

The features of panda were drawn on using homemade chocolate custard and I added a carrot bow tie to the pop-up sandwich.

As I have fallen ill (been coughing very badly), I was really drowsy from the medicine and only could manage a simple breakfast bento.

I remembered that I have this cutter and decided to use it together to make this Panda Sandwich Bento.

The side dishes for today’s bento was a healthy choice, since I will need all the vitamins and antioxidants to boost my recovery. So I included some yogurt and fresh fruits.

To make the panda yogurt, I used blue berries for the ears and the features were drawn on using some homemade chocolate custard.

Tomorrow is public holiday here in Singapore, are you having a holiday too~ enjoy the break!

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The post Panda Bamboo Bento　パンダさんのキャラ弁 appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

Super back-log post, since I taught this Panda and Rabbit Bento Workshop back in June. 

Been making bento non stop for the last almost 36 hours (feeling groggy). This is because I am doing a major project now. Unfortunately, I cannot post the bento till the project is out, later this year!!

Back to Panda and Rabbit Bento ^^ This was a private class request for Esther and her friends as part of a birthday celebration. Everyone was great and I hope that they enjoyed themselves. 

Keen on workshops, read more here. ^ ^

Inside both bunny and panda rice balls are salmon flakes. I love salmon flakes for riceball – yummy!! This is also one of my favorite onigiri filling. I always buy them at combini (convenient store) when I visit Japan. 

A small cosy class of 4, everyone was wonderful! :) Thank you so much for attending the class. 

Oh yes and a good news to share with everyone, in conjunction with Singapore’s National Day, Bento and co will be offering free full day shipping for all Singaporean customers for 9 August 2014 only. Woo hoo~~~ super awesome! 

 

The post Panda and Rabbit Bento Workshop appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

Panda Bento – Seaweed Cutting Oblate Sheet Tutorial

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here. :)

The post Panda Bento　パンダさんのキャラ弁 appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

I made this Panda and Bunny bento for a bento demo workshop demonstration for Lee Kum Kee. We ended up changing the design as we wanted to highlight the use of their new ketchup sauce. But I thought of sharing all the bento with you anyway. Hope you like them all ;)

I used teriyaki sauce to color the ears and hands of Panda brown color, I like how that gives the overall ‘softer’ look to the Panda. Doesn’t the Panda look a little more demure? heheh. 

The bunny sandwich were made with parents in mind. I know of many parents who want to make something cute but are in a rush of time – This would be an easy bento to make :) Remove the bread crust. Roll the bread slices with your favourite sandwich filling. Add ham slices for the ears and seaweed for the facial features. 

The last bento I wanted to share with you is a simple tomato ketchup sauce bear character bento. Lee Kum Kee has recently launched a new tomato ketchup sauce where the bottle tip is designed to allow one to squeeze out the tomato sauce and create ketchup ‘drawings’! 

The post Panda Bento, Bunny Bento & Bear Bento appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

It has been some time since I practised making gumpaste figurine making, so yesterday I took some a small portion of gumpaste and started molding. Ended up with these panda characters which I then packed into my bento. I doubt I will eat the gumpaste figurine for breakfast, so the panda are more for the fun of it! :P

I also made mini little fruit tarts as I had some leftover yogurt mousse. I filled the tart crust with the mousse, topped with white strawberries, strawberry kitkat, dango ball and also sakura flower gumpaste. 

For today’s bento, I had tri color sandwich fillings which were matcha jam, sakura bean paste and white bean paste. The 3 hanami colors! (green, pink and white). Hanami which literally means flower viewing in Japanese, refers to the enjoyment of sakura blossoms in spring.

The sides were simple, there were the fruit tart I made, some strawberries, vegetables and hard boiled egg.

Have a great week ahead everyone!

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The post Panda Sakura Sandwich Bento　パンダさんの桜キャラベン appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

A Panda Sakura Viewing Bento today! :)

A little earlier for Sakura… but oh well! 

I absolutely love Sakura flowers, anytime of the year! After enjoying cherry blossoms in Tokyo last year end March, the beautiful images of the rows of sakura flowers left a very deep impression in me. Hopefully I can enjoy it again, perhaps with my hubby the next time (was travelling alone in the earlier trip). 

Since we are already in March month (though still a tad early for sakura blooms), I decided to make a Panda Sakura Viewing Bento, plus I get to cook my sakura soba noodles. Yeay!

Panda is enjoying the beautiful sakura and having a cup of hot green tea~~

The ingredients for the panda included rice, seaweed and some ham. The little green tea cup was made from rice and green egg sheet – I thought the cup of green tea looked quite real. heheh happy!

The sakura flowers were made from ham and I arranged them on a bed of sakura soba noodles. The side dishes included sauteed thinly sliced pork with shiitake mushrooms, sauteed jumbo beans with carrots and prawns, some strawberries, lettuce and a kawaii sakura flower wagashi (traditional sweet). 

Have a good Monday everyone and a great week!

今日パンダさん花見のキャラベン。

桜が大好きですね！とても、とても綺麗です。昨年3月末に東京で桜を楽しんだ後、又見たいです。

今日のキャラベンは楽しかったんですね。パンダさんは熱いお抹茶を飲んでね～～ハハ。

パンダさんキャラクターの材料は：飯、海苔、ハム。お抹茶は飯と（緑）薄焼き卵を使いました。桜の花はハムですよ。下は桜のそばです。

おかずは：椎茸と豚肉ソテー、野菜炒め、イチゴ、レタス、和菓子。

皆さん、素敵な一日なりますよ～

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The post Panda Sakura Bento　パンダさん花見のキャラベン appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

Those of you who follow my blog would know that I rarely use rice molds as I prefer to mold my characters freehand with cling wrap, I find that it gives me more flexibility and variations in the character I want to make. 

Click on the images below to Bento & Co’s store for the bento tools if you are keen to get them. :) have fun bento-ing!

Blog Post Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. No monetary compensation has been received. All views expressed are my own. 

Follow my food art and bento creations on Facebook, LIKE my page here. :)

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