Mothering Corner

It’s been awhile since the last time my kids and I fixed bentos together. So last night, all of us decided to have some “playing-with-our-food” fun by fixing a mini Santa Claus. My boy did most of his Santa Claus by himself, but my gal was enjoying leftovers after cutting them.

I wanted to fix the Santa Claus with quail eggs, but I couldn’t get any last night. Thus, the eggs were replaced by fish balls. Besides that, I prepared a white egg sheet, a piece of ham, a blanched baby carrot and some tiny spaghetti strips. Here’s how we did our Santa Claus:

Cut the ham and egg white with a small flower cutter, and stack them together.

Actually, you may skip this step if your egg sheet is thick enough. But to prevent it from tearing, stacking it on a piece of ham will help a lot.

Cut off the top to form Santa’s beard. (The top was later used as my boy’s Santa’s mustache)

Pin the beard on a fish ball with spaghetti strips. (You may replace it with quail egg)

Cut a small heart from the egg white and cut it into halves.

Pin the beard and a nose for Santa.

Pretty simple huh? My boy had no problem fixing his own Santa Claus, but I helped him to pin on the details.

He used a bigger flower cutter though…

I refrigerated the bento work in air-tight container, and took them out this morning. I pinned the fish ball on a cherry tomato, and added the eyes and lips with nori. I’ve forgotten to add the buttons, which were cut by my boy, but I guess he’s forgotten about them too. LOL!

Mini Santa Claus

Anyway, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Santa Claus, with tangerines and spaghetti too.

My boy’s Santa, which he’s very proud of it.

You must be wondering how I closed the bentos huh? LOL! Actually, my gal voiced her concern too. She’s too worried that her Santa will smashed when I closed it, so my boy suggested that they packed the tangerines in smaller bento boxes. So, their Santa could nicely lay down in the bentos, and I filled in the gap with some lettuce. Both of them are sooooooo “kan cheong” about Santa, I guess they really like today’s theme.

It’s quite fun doing this with my kids, even if it might be kind of messy some times. My kids have been asking me to bake with them, but I’m too tired to do so by the time we are back from the office. Besides that, weekends are quite packed with activities and TV, and some times, the mommy is too lazy to do anything much. If I have a maid or central vacuum to clean up the mess, then maybe we will bake some cookies for Christmas.

In short, mommy is simply too lazy. LOL!

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

Obviously, today’s bento is inspired by Sanrio Charaben Contest! I showed the bentos to my kids the other day and my boy wanted to have that cute little Shinkansen quail egg. He even drew a picture of Shinkansen last night, hoping to fix it by himself, but I didn’t prepare any ingredients for him. I haven’t tried preparing hard boiled eggs a night before, and I’ve always prepared them in the morning.

As for my gal, I decided to fix Hello Kitty for her as it’s pretty easy. I know that I would be spending more time on Shinkansen, so I have to pick an easier Sanrio character for her bento. Besides that, she’s a big fan of Hello Kitty mah…

So, here’s how I decorated an quail egg as Hello Kitty:

I cut 2 small triangles of kamaboko as Hello Kitty’s ears. Make 2 small cuts on the top of the quail egg and gently slip in its ears.

Hello Kitty’s eyes were punched from nori and her nose was cut from a tiny piece of egg sheet. (Try to prepare the egg sheet a night before, and freeze it for next use.)

Next, add some whiskers for Hello Kitty.

As for Shinkansen:

I cut the tiny strips of nori and punched some circles for its wheels.

I added his eyes, eyebrows (cut the sad smile into halves) and his cheeks from egg sheet.

I punched a few tiny strips of nori as its windows.

 After that, I placed the quail eggs in their bentos, consisted of spaghetti Bolognese. Their fruits were packed separately as shown:

Today’s bento with Shinkansen and Hello Kitty quail eggs.

A closer shot of the mini bentos.

If you have food coloring, try to make a blue egg sheet for Shinkansen and it will look better than mine. So, give it a try!

P/S: If you would like to have rounder shape of quail eggs, only put the eggs in when the water is boiling and roll the eggs for 1 -2 minutes before leaving them to cook.