Bento Osaka-a japanese reminiscence

it's hard to get words to write about food under 2 scenarios:

A) you are too busy eating them

B) you are too busy making them

for me, i think it's a case of both. but to be faithful to my dearest readers, here's a winning homemade meal/ bento that you would definitely want your loved ones to enjoy:

roasted sweet potato and pumpkin onigiri and tsukune + toriyaki chicken skewers

to be honest, has been a while since i last made these, mainly because it's so time-consuming. so recalling the recipe is difficult. but i'll try the best with my goldfish memory:

Onigiri

Ingredients:

short/med grain japanese rice (cooked and mixed with sushi vinegar and roasted black sesame seed)

seaweed pieces

roasted pumpkin and sweet potato ( cubed and roasted with olive oil and 2TB brown sugar, 1 tsp black pepper mixed- or replace olive oil with sesame oil for more asian taste)

1) Using a plastic bag, scoop out warm and moist cooked rice and press in palms (gloved)

2) place piece of roasted pumpkin/ sweet potato in centre of pressed rice

3) form into triangular shaped balls

4) place a piece of roasted seaweed over

Tsukune Skewers

Ingredients for meat balls: 300g miced chicken/pork, 1/4 onion, 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 TB cornflour, 7 TB bread crumbs, 1 inch ginger (grated and extract juice)

Ingredients for sauce: 4TB sake, 5 TB shoyu, 2TB mirin, 2 TB sugar (i used brown sugar), 1 tsp dark soy sauce, 1 tsp cornflour, 2 tsp water

1) Mix all ingredients for meatballs and set aside for 20 min

2) Bring 2 cups water to boil in a pot. Wet hands and shape balls into desired size and drop into boiling water (shunz' s note: 1 TB spoon size is good measurement for amt of pork mince to use for 1 ball)

3) Cook till meat balls float. Remove and drain.

4) Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius and skewer alternate roasted pumpkin/ sweet potato/ zuchinni with meatballs ( you'll get the idea from the picture above!)

5) Grill for 4 to 5 minutes and keep brushing with sauce. Repeat process for at least 3 times for lovely flavour! You can't play cheat with effort when making jap food!

Terayaki Skewers

Ingredients: 300g chicken thigh/ breast meat (for breast meat, watch the temperature of your grill or oven because they dry out faster), 2TB sakae, 2TB sugar, 1 TB miso paste, 4TB shoyu, sprinkle of pepper

1) Marinate bite-site chicken pieces with the above sauces and leave for at least 30 min or overnight

2) Skewer them and alternate with green spring onion/ cucumber

3) Brush excess marinate as sauce during grilling at temperture of 200 degrees ( i trialed 180 degrees for breast meat)

ok i'm tired from blogging now. till then!