Bento Bent

I ate my way through the holidays for the past two months and now it's time to get to work. Oddly enough, I've been loving the past two weeks on my way to flab countdown - so much I've been too tired to write at night. I've fallen in love, you see ... again, you ask? Home style Japanese food has caught my attention and I'm in a tizzy.

I've been cooking my way through a Japanese cook book (thank you King County library system): Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother's Tokyo Kitchen by Naomi Moriyama. I'm not Japanese, but I tell you, I must have been in another lifetime. Eating this food just feels like home. My weight is coming down, energy up, and I've taken my latest love interest to breakfast, lunch and dinner. So far, it hasn't been an expensive date, but turning out to be a consuming one...

I'm now getting up every morning at 6 a.m. to make Japanese "power" breakfasts (miso soup, rice, side dishes, etc.), bento box lunches, and home style dinner entrees for Tharan, my son, and I (with the exception of my five year old - she hasn't quite taken to onigiri and gobo, not yet). I'm like those Japanese mothers and now cooking fresh miso soup daily too. Oishii!

The thing about this food is not only are the flavors delicious and simple, but the dishes are beautiful. There is a grace and beauty about the simplicity and pleasing color palette of the dishes. I've been taking an additional hour in the evening prepping the boxes for the morning.

I've been boiling juice gelatins, washing cherry tomatoes, radishes, blueberries, and placing delicate wrapped Japanese cookies into the compartments. You wouldn't believe (I don't believe it) how consumed I've become with the details of our lunches daily. It seems a lot of work and sure looks like it... but I've got it down to 10 minutes in the mornings.

The bento lunch I made yesterday (pictured here) has bambo shoots and squid, carrots and gobo, sticky rice sprinkled with furikake, cranberry juice gelatin, hijiki and fried tofu, fresh fruit (blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries), and a paper wrapped rice cracker. The bento pictures look like a lot of food, but really isn't. Bento box portions are quite small compared to our American appetites and portions. When I first saw the bento boxes on display at Daiso's, I thought they would feed a child nicely - then saw that the recommended portion was for an adult female! The one featured here feeds an adult male and I bought it from Uwajimaya's.

At work at times,  I sometimes take a peek into the red lacquered box just to look at the colors. You see, it's as I've always believed - food should not only feed the stomach but also the eyes... and it doesn't hurt that it's reducing my waist line too.

Try this delicious fiber rich gobo recipe. I've been eating this dish hot and cold every day now for the past two weeks. The crunch of the carrots, gobo and rich nutty flavor of the ground sesame blend nicely. This dish has become a standard side dish on our breakfast and dinner table.

Gobo and Carrot

adapted from Naomi Moriyama, "Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat"

1 medium (8 ounce) burdock root
1 T canola oil
2 dried red peppers (Japanese, Thai chili, Santaka, or Szechuan)
1 C carrots, cut into matchstick slivers
1 T sake
1 T reduced-sodium soy sauce
2 t mirin
1 t granulated sugar
1 t toasted and ground sesame seeds

1. Scrub the exterior of the burdock root with a vegetable brush to remove excess dirt and the skin. Cut the burdock root into 2 1/2 to 3" long matchsticks, and rinse quickly under cold water. You will have approximately 2 cups of burdock root matchsticks.
2. Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the red peppers and saute for 30 seconds. Add the burdock root and saute until tender, about 3 minutes; it will appear translucent on the surface. Stir in the carrot and saute for 2 minutes.
3. Reduce the heat to low and add the sake, soy, mirin, and sugar. Stir the vegetables for 1 minute more to allow them to absorb the sauce. Remove and discard the red peppers and arrange the vegetables in a mound in the center of a serving bowl and garnish with the sesame seeds.

Ramen Cravings

Some people have ice cream cravings, and some french fries. When I want something bad, it tends to be fried chicken. I'm not sure why. Something about the crunchy, salty, fatty fried skin and juicy bite of chicken leg sends me swooning. 

Growing up, my dad dipped his fried chicken (and pretty much everything else) into ketchup. I do this now too, a learned habit, I suppose. I'm noticing both my kids now are adopting the same eccentric food habits. Like those food magazine interviews of celebrities asking what's in their fridge - mine (a girl can dream!) would be a bottle of Heinz's 57 Ketchup. Anyhoo....

For the past month, I've been having a new craving - Ramen Noodles. This obsession came after I ate at Samurai located in the same building as Uwajimaya in the ID district for the first time about a month ago. I had read many reviews on this place prior to going there. Folks just raved on and on about the ramen bar, claiming it was the BEST ramen in Seattle and comparing its authenticity to a good bowl of ramen in Japan. Of course, I had to try it...

OMG.

I've gone in to Samurai four times over the past month and have now ordered the same bowl of ramen three of the four times. When I like something, I tend to not only be a repeat customer, but a repeat orderer. It's a sure thing and I like to know what I'm getting. Boring maybe, routine, ok ... I just like what I like - especially when it is GOOD! A bit of advice if you're trying to get there at lunch time - go before 11:15 a.m. Trust me - the line out the door typically begins around 11: 15 am. And the place is dime store small, so be prepared to knock knees with the other hungry patrons at the tables next to you. No need to be shy, the ramen is worth it.

The bowl I'm crazy about is called Tampopo. Based on the Tampopo movie with the same name, a ramen western about a woman in Tokyo who achieved to make the best bowl of ramen and recruited two guys to help her. A funny and weirdly charming movie.

There is absolutely nothing funny about the movie's namesake ramen served at Samurai , it's serious business. Seriously tantalizing. Sliced melt-in-your-mouth, chunky pork slices, soy sauce marinated hard boiled egg, tender bamboo shoots, tasty naruto, papery thin roasted seaweed, and green onions are the condiments. 

But the real heroes are the shoyou based soup and the noodles. Geez louise, where did they get those noodles?! Firm, robust, chewy, and just the perfect al dente-ness. Couple those perfect noodles with that briny, complex flavored soup and you have an authentic bowl of ramen.... at least in these parts. About that broth - tasting it made me think of grandma's home soup - the kind she used to boil for hours and hours. 

Tasted like home. Ya.... I could bathe in it, Samurai's soup is that good. Enough said.

A preview hint of things to come... my ramen obsession must now be cultivated at home as I can't keep driving almost 40 minutes to get my ramen hit every week. Plus, the bowls of ramen aren't cheap. If this keeps up, I might need to ask for a job there. Except once they figure out my real intentions and see that I'm always hovering over the soup pot - they'll banish me to the dish washing. 

Looks like I'll need to Tampopo it and try and make a decent imitation at home. Wish me luck, folks. I've thrown down the gauntlet to myself this week. Let's see what I come up with...