Mothering Corner

After a week of break, I’m back to packing bentos again. My gal asked for wiener in her bento, and after her food strike, I’m more than delighted to fulfill her request!

Thus, I decided to decorate the mini smoked wieners as little piggies again since it’s pretty easy.

I prepared 3 mini smoked wieners.

I cut one of the wieners in slices diagonally.

I cut the ears and noses with this cutter. It’s one of the cutters from the quail egg cutter set.

Cut a line at the tip of the wiener and slip in the ear. Then, pin the nose to the wiener with tiny bit of spaghetti strip.

Punch some nori and add the eyes on the wieners.

So, here is the end result:

My gal’s piggies bento. Since there is some leftover of wiener slice, I decorated the quail egg as a piggy too.

There are champagne grapes, blueberries, corn, strawberry, green mango and a small piece of mini danish in the bentos as well.

After 2 days of non-decorative fruit bentos, my boy politely asked me to fix him something nice today.

Some mothers are worried that once we started decorating our kids’ food, our children might not want to eat “normal-plain-looking” meals. But for my kids, they will still eat the “plain-looking” bentos, as long as they are hungry! I found that we don’t really have to do charabens all the time, just to make a bento more attractive. Check out how Sherimiya does her colorful bentos with wonderful fruits and veggies arrangement.

For today’s bento, I cut the bread with Shinkansen rice molds, which I bought from Sanrio at Central Department store. Besides sandwiches, I packed some mango, champagne grapes, pineapple (for my gal) and a piece of tofu in each bento. I did the decoration with nori and cheese, so my Shinkansen does not look like the real train.

My boy’s Shinkansen, which I’ve forgotten to add some wheels at the bottom. LOL! I’d only realized it.

 
This is my gal’s bento.

It’s best to use blue egg sheet, but I don’t have any food color. Shinkansen will definitely look better if it’s decorated in blue.

When I first started packing bentos, I could not make “nice” egg sheets. They were either brownish (like over cooked), or too thin to be folded, or there were a lot of bubbles on the surface. Then, I checked out my bento books and a few blogs, especially from akinoichigo, and found that we have to add some corn starch to the egg mixture, so that the egg sheets can be better formed. I can’t read Japanese, so hopefully, my translator is giving me the right translation! LOL!

Thus, I always add some corn starch to the egg mixture, before frying it. Here’s how I fix my egg sheets:

I separated the egg white from yolk. You don’t have to do this, unless you prefer white and yellow egg sheets.

Mix a teaspoon of corn starch in water. Then, add a teaspoon of diluted corn starch into the egg mixture. I can’t tell exactly how much water you need for the corn starch, but don’t make it too watery.

Stir the egg mixture well and “filter” it with a sieve.

Then, heat up your frying pan and add approximately a teaspoon of cooking oil. Try to “move” the oil around so that it covers most part of the frying pan. Once the oil is heated, set the stove to the lowest flame and pour the excess oil away.

Pour in the egg mixture on the frying pan.

Let it cook for a couple of minutes. If you see bubbles forming on the surface, lift up your pan and keep it a way from the flame. The bubbles should subside, and the surface of the egg sheet will look smoother.

After that, flip the egg sheet to the other side. Now, turn off the stove.

Cover the pan with a lid and let the other surface cooked by the “remaining heat” from the frying pan. It should be done in less than 3 minutes.

I think I saw this “trick” from a Japanese blog, but I can’t remember where it’s from. Since I can’t read Japanese, I did my egg sheets in trial and error and now I’m happy with the result:

My white and yellow egg sheets.

I would normally wrap the egg sheets (after they are cooled down) in cling wrap and keep them frozen in my fridge. They will stay fresh in a week, and it’s easier for me if I need them for bento decoration. Just thaw them a night before in the chiller and they are ready to be used on the next day.

Give it a try and let me know ya?

P/S: Here are some blogs with egg sheet tutorials:
Microwaved thin egg sheets (usuyaki tamago)
Japanese basics: thin omelette (usuyaki tamago)
How to make an egg sheet