Tuesday, November 05, 2013

masakichi's blog

I recently bought two bento books. They are written in Japanese by a blogger.

Masakichi makes bento for herself everyday. According to her book, she cooks the foods for her bento in the morning, lets them cool, packs them, then photographs the bento for her blog...then she goes to work.

I like that most of these recipes are for one or two people and I also like that most of these recipes are really easy.

So far, I've tried 2 recipes from her book, "Bento wa jinsei da (Bento is life)"

The first was her simple pickle recipe...really easy and I like the flavors.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it:
Veggies of your choice (cucumber, red bell pepper, carrot, onion are what I chose), cut into easy to eat pieces

Pickling liquid:
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups water
1.5 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin seed

Place your cut veggies into a sterilized bottle
Bring pickling liquid to a boil, sugar & salt should be melted, then pour over veggies
Add the pepper and cumin seed
After the bottle is cooled, cover and refrigerate

Here's what the pickles look like after a day of soaking...here.

NOTES: I like the crunch these pickles have and the flavor, there is just enough pucker and the cumin isn't overpowering.

The other recipe I tried was her green bean o-kaka-ni.

"O-kaka" is another name used for katsuo bushi (shaved bonito). They usually use this name when labeling musubi. "ni" means to simmer.

This recipes is really easy too and really flavorful.

Here's what you need to do if you want to try this:
10 green beans (haricot vert), tops and bottoms cut off, washed
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1.5 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
2 teaspoons shoyu (soy sauce)
1/2 package katsuo bushi (shaved bonito) : about 2.5 grams

After cleaning, washing and drying the beans, cut them in half.
In a medium heated pan, add the sesame oil and toss the beans to coat
Then add the water, mirin, sake & shoyu, turn the heat down to low.
Place an oshibuta (drop lid) on top and cook until all the liquid has evaporated.
Sprinkle the katsuo bushi on and toss.

NOTES: I really liked the flavor from this, a little salty and a little sweet, definitely good with rice.

I hope to try more recipes from these books.

What have you been up to in your kitchen?

p.s. if you want to check out Masakichi's blog, the link is here (in Japanese)

8 comments:

Helen said...

Hi! I think you might have made a mistake in the first recipe...you said "Bring pickling liquid to a bottle"...but I think you mean to bring it to a boil??

Sounds good though !

K and S said...

Thanks Helen! I revised it.

Take care.
Kat

K said...

The recipes look great!

K and S said...

If you try them I hope you like them, K!

Take care.
Kat

Rowena said...

Can you share the link to her blog? She sounds like one of those role model bloggers (she does all that and then goes off to work!) that I will never become, but I like looking at pics for inspiration so... :-P

K and S said...

Thanks Rowena, I've added the link to this post and I'll post it here as well, the blog is in japanese, but there are lots of delicious photos to look at.

Take care.
Kat

Masakichi's blog: http://masakichi3.exblog.jp/

Rowena said...

Checked out her blog....Masakichi is an artist! Love her variety of bento boxes, and how she photographs each meal - simple but with good detail. Thanks for the link!

K and S said...

glad you enjoyed it, Rowena! she is amazing, she cooks her bento before she goes to work, I would definitely be making stuff the night before so that I wouldn't have to rush around the next morning.

Take care.
Kat