Rurouni kenshin seaweed art

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anime bento, bento, character bentos, cheese, creative food, cute food, food art, himura kenshin, Home Cooking, Kyaraben, rurouni kenshin, samurai x, seaweed, seaweed art

Another seaweed art I did over the long weekend. I’ve been wanting to do a rurouni kenshin one for over a year now and finally have some free time to stay home and mess around with seaweed. Perfect time for rurouni kenshin as two of the movies are out this year!  

 First step? Again, draw the character of your choice, it should be either a line art or just black and white, not grey tones or anything cuz you can’t distinguish that in the seaweed.

2nd, I skipped this step because I plain forgot… trace out your character on a clean sheet of paper using ink, then block the black parts in. Since I forgot, I just used this as a topper and didn’t eat it (couldn’t bear to anyway!). OR you can combine the first and second step by just printing out the lineart/black and white image of your choice and just use that if you’re not particularly comfortable with drawing freehand.

 3. Next, prepare your tools! My brother and sister got me a new set of bento cutting tools (a great design cutter!) and pincers since my older set is in Singapore. Clip the drawing on top of the seaweed against the cutting board.

 4. Start cutting all the WHITE parts out! This is a particularly intricate piece and had many tiny details. I accidentally cut out some seaweed lines which could have been rectified by snipping small lines of seaweed, but of course by the end of it I just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

5. Cut the small white pieces first. If you cut out the large pieces, the seaweed will shift around and make it impossible to cut the tiny ones. Use pincers to remove the paper and seaweed as you go along.

 Phew! There’s the face done.

Once in a while, flip up the paper to have a look if your seaweed is being cut cleanly and properly.

And you’re done!

Transfer the seaweed careful and stick it on a slice or two of cheese. I might try a harder cheese next time so it is easier to handle, but this cheese is sticky and the seaweed sticks very well onto it.

 6. Cut the cheese and trim it around the seaweed.

 7. Add to your bento! Or in this case, tomato soup. One of the many ways to jazz up boring canned soup. 

Although some croutons wouldn’t hurt as well!

 It was so difficult to photograph as the light kept shining off it! I wish I had daylight to take a proper photo of it.

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Rurouni kenshin seaweed art – Coming soon!

Tags

anime, bento, bento art, character bento, cute bentos, himura kenshin, kenshin, Kyaraben, rurouni kenshin, seaweed, seaweed art, tomato soup

Bento assortment: Pandas and strange creatures galore!

Tags

bento, character bento, eggs, furikake, Home Cooking, japanese, Kyaraben, lunch, lunchbox, onigiri, panda onigiri, rice, sausages, seaweed

Never knew that bento-making could be made into a fun bonding session with friends 😉 At my age, bonding/get-togethers normally mean just meals or drinks so I was a little apprehensive at first. As it turned out, it was pretty entertaining!

We used several items, as I’ll list out below, to assemble our bentos. They may not be perfect but I think its the experience that counts ;D

This is just a short picture post as there aren’t any instructions… just do whatever you like and go crazy with your food!

Tools used:

• Cute and colourful picks
• Panda rice mold
• Seaweed cutters (panda shaped and various smileys)
• Small knife
• Small scissors
• Tweezers

Food used:

• Plain white cooked short grain rice
• cooked white short grain rice mixed with salmon furikake topping
• An assortment of fruits
• Shiso leaves
• Cheese slices
• Cocktail sausages
• Furikake
• Boiled eggs
• Wasabi peas
• Seaweed

So here’s my bento, the pandas, the failed hatched chick and cheese swirls:

Below are the bentos my two friends came up with.

I’m now all revved up to make cuter bentos soon! Its a nice change to seaweed art, but of course I won’t abandon that either. I’ve yet to make Rurouni kenshin bentos!

Crayon Shin Chan Kyaraben

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apple, apple designs, bento, character bento, Crayon Shin-chan, cutters, easy, flower shaped apples, food art, furikake, Home Cooking, Kyaraben, lunchbox, nori, quick, salmon furikake, seaweed, seaweed art, shin chan

Here’s an easy kyaraben (Character bento) that you could attempt. This anime character is Shin Chan, one of the many anime characters that bring back a wave of university nostalgia. For the list of tools used, please refer to my first bento post.To make Shin Chan’s face, I used some rice mixed with Salmon furikake (to make the flesh tone). I couldn’t find a furikake that had no seaweed in it so unfortunately my flesh tone had little specks of seaweed in them T___T. It turned out ok in the end though.

For the hair, eyes and eyebrows I cut out strips of seaweed using a sharp design cutter as shown in my first bento post.

As usual, I drew my design on paper, just to make the face fit in with the other food I wanted to put into my bento. Using this design as a template, you can then cut out the hair, eyes and eyebrows by clipping the paper on top of a sheet of nori on a cutting board as shown in the pictures below.  

So the sequence is: Paper, seaweed and then cutting board. All fastened together to make it easier to cut out the delicate pieces of seaweed. Then you mix your Salmon furikake into the rice, place it into the bento box and shape it into the form that you’ve drawn in the design, roughly in the same size as accurately as possible. Then add the seaweed hair, eyes and eyebrows.

If added the seaweed directly onto the rice, the seaweed will shrivel. However I find that cutting out cheese to form the base for the seaweed infinitely cumbersome so I skipped that step. Cheese normally should be the base for any form of seaweed art so that the seaweed remains nice and flat instead of all crumpled and shriveled like it was in my bento T____TSo there it is. I cut out some flowers from an apple, added an egg and some chicken. Then I used a chunk of chilli for Shin Chan’s mouth. I suppose you could use ketchup or do it the professional way and use an egg sheet dyed red. Too much trouble to make the egg sheet for such a small area. Plus I like the spicy kick that the chilli lent. This is the second part of the bento. Just a compilation of the stuff I wanted to eat. Make sure that moist foods like fruits are separated from dry foods using rubber separators or in this case, leaves 😉 I wouldn’t want that egg tart to turn soggy!

I’d like to draw your attention to the apples. I saw these designs in a magazine but couldn’t understand how it was made so I freestyled it… basically I winged it.  I cut some apple chunks with the skin still on, in large cubes. Then I made four shallow cuts in the skin with a small knife, in the form of a hashtag # (I hope you understand what I’m bumbling on about, guess this is where a video would be much more educational than my incoherent words). Use the knife to gently peel off the skin slices in alternate blocks, leaving the skin on in some blocks so that it forms the design as shown. It is actually easier than it looks.

And there you have it, a Shin Chan bento. This was quick, delicious and fun to prepare. Definitely fun to eat as well 😉

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Tatsuya, Goodwood Hotel Singapore

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akami, anago, bonito, caviar, ebi, flounder, goodwood hotel, goodwood park hotel, halfbeak, ikura, japanese omakase, japanese pear, japanese singapore, kajiki, maguro, musk melon, omakase, omakase singapore, otoro, prawn, restaurant review, salmon, sayori, sea urchin, seaweed, singapore, singapore restaurant, sushi rice, tatsuya, tuna, uni, yuzu

*Edit: Updated Review on Tatsuya here

I’ve heard quite a bit about Tatsuya from friends, and as Japanese omakase is my not-so-secret crush I was pretty thrilled when my makan kaki suggested Tatsuya for dinner. We went after the recent renovation so I have no idea what it looked like before.

It is a good sized traditional Japanese restaurant located at Goodwood Park Hotel and offers counter seats where you can watch the chefs do their thing as well as table seats.

As far as omakase goes, the rates are similar to other omakase restaurants in Singapore. We went for the SGD 280++ omakase option and topped up a little for desserts.

Sat at the counter, always very educational and you’re left with a better idea of the skill level of the chef as well as the dedication they put into their food.

Now, so far I’ve only been to the really traditional types of Japanese omakase restaurants and I expected Tatsuya to be the same. However, I quickly realized how wrong I was. Yes indeed they do go about the traditional methods of preparation but they also favor the technique of “aburi” (flame-torching) alongside using modern twists in preparing the fresh seafood.

Here’s a beautiful carpaccio dish that serves as a good example to the delightful little surprises that they come up with at Tatsuya.

Beautiful is it not?

First up we each had a dish of ikura with some yuzu grated over the top. What makes this ikura stand out is that each roe is separate from the other. I’ve gotten so used to roes sticking and clumping together that this came as a bit of a surprise. A good one of course. Each individual sac was fresh and not at all slimy, bursting with briny goodness. 

Some dish that the chef was preparing for the other guests.

Next, we had some simmered mackerel (on the left) and monkfish liver (on the right). I love monkfish liver, but I’d gauge these two dishes as average. Perhaps I just prefer raw fish haha!

Above, some flounder topped with seaweed, uni and bonito. Great texture on the fish, a little bite, alongside the game changers, the toppings. While the uni topping was my favourite, the bonito came a close second.

Here we had a plate of half beak (sayori) sashimi with ginger and spring onions. Shiny skinned fish tend to smell a little stronger so ginger and spring onions are often used to balance out the smell. As the fish was fresh there was hardly any smell, while the ginger and spring onion only served to heighten the flavour of the fish. 

Once we were done with the sashimi, they whisked away the bones of the fish and deep fried it so that you can enjoy those too and nothing is wasted. 

The next offering: a plate of delectable, thick-cut sashimi

Akami remains my favorite. The fried ebi topped with caviar and yuzu was heavenly as well. Fantastic combination.

This is something we did not try as we both do not take beef. It looks good doesn’t it? The fat on the beef was just melting before our eyes as they torched it.

❤

Torched abalone with yuzu, I think they must have added some butter at some point. Tender and flavorful, but not as mind blowingly good as the one I had at the curb market in Sapporo .

*drools*

Above, an aburi toro. Meltingly soft and juicy, the fish went so well with the rice, daikon and spring onions with just a hint of smoke from the torched surface.

This is definitely a place that has got its rice right. Nice short grains of lightly vinegared rice.

Next up, aburi Kajiki (swordfish belly) which had a little more bite to it in comparison to the toro. While it doesn’t hold a flame to the toro, it holds its own ground pretty well too.

Aburi Kampachi belly topped with bonito flakes, nori and roast sesame seeds. Oh and yuzu of course. I love how Tatsuya manages to blend all these strong flavours together and never overpower the fish. The flavours all come together very harmoniously.

This? Party in my mouth! Aburi Ebi with mentaiko mayo topped with yuzu and lumpfish caviar. BEST COMBINATION EVER! Or rather perhaps I’m biased towards anything with mentaiko mayonnaise. Prawn is amazing with that mixture. When they torched this baby I could hear the mentaiko popping furiously as they cook. The sweet mayo, marinated mentaiko, half crunchy, half creamy ebi and caviar just took this dish to level heaven (yes I’m dramatizing food, I loved it that much)

This is yet another favorite! Hotate (scallop) and Foie gras lightly touched and topped with yuzu and er… tiny anchovies haha. I thought that the anchovies got in the way of the scallop and foie gras a little. It was divine nonetheless.

Rich heavy foie gras with the smooth clean and creamy taste of the scallops… mmm…

This is something I’m more familiar with, the conventional sushi as it is. Uni and ikura ❤ 

I remember asking for no eel at the start of the meal. I’m not sure why this came but I’m glad it did. It was nicely broiled and delicious.

Lastly, a really crunchy, simple roll that you just eat with your hands. Simple, no fuss, minimalistic yet really satisfying. Did I mention that the nori is fabulously crunchy?

Chef preparing hunks of beef

Beef on fire! It was sizzling and I found myself drooling over a meat I’ve only tried once or twice in my life and never crave for!

Ended the course with some fruits; a musk melon and japanese pear. As Japanese fruits go, these were extraordinary in flavour and texture as well.

We couldn’t resist…. ordered a yuzu sorbet and caramel ice cream. Refreshing end to a fantastic meal.

Tatsuya

ADDRESS

22 Scotts Road Goodwood Park Hotel Singapore 228221

(65) 6737-1160

Japanese style rice porridge

Tags

creamy porridge, Egg, healthy, japanese, nori, okayu, porridge, quick meals, rice, rice porridge, seaweed, spring onions, zosui

This is one of those quick fixes that can be done with just cooked rice and an egg. The other ingredients are cupboard ingredients (those that can be stored for a really long time), which is the beauty of this dish really.

If you’ve heard of the nabe (hot pots) that Japanese really love, you’d have also heard of them adding rice into the leftover stock once they’re done cooking the rest of the food. They then turn the rice into porridge, and thus, nothing is wasted.

And it is really delicious! I tried this “zosui” (the Japanese refer to thick rice porridge as zosui/okayu) in Hokkaido after a delicious kani-nabe ( I did NOT just swear at you lol!). Kani means crab, so what we had after the crab hotpot was some delicious stock. The waitress added more stock to it and then added precooked rice and let it simmer for a while before adding egg. It was the best porridge I’ve had!

I try to replicate it here the best I can without such expensive ingredients, crabs don’t come cheap in Singapore. I’ve come pretty close to it I think.

Ingredients (For 2 pax, or 1 hungry person)

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup dashi (this is the second bottle from the left) – you can make it yourself, using konbu, anchovies and soy sauce but I found this more convenient
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp sake/cooking wine
• Handful of chopped spring onions for topping
• Handful of seaweed (nori) strips for topping

Cooking Instructions

Pour the dashi, water, mirin and wine into a pot and bring to a simmer.

Add the rice and cover the pot with a lid. Simmer on medium high heat until the rice softens. If you prefer really soft rice in the porridge, you could simmer it a little longer, just add some water so it doesnt dry up and stick to the bottom of the pot.

Once you’ve reached your desired consistency, turn off the heat and pour the egg into the centre of the porridge.

Work quickly and use the bottom of a ladle to stir the egg round and round until the egg is completely incorporated into the porridge.

You want the end result to look creamy. This is the end result of stirring the egg well. If you let the egg cook before you stir it in, it is going to look like an egg drop soup. Not like it tastes bad either, it just will not be as creamy as the picture below.

So the egg has to be quickly stirred in, in circles starting from the centre of the pot. If you were to stir it any way you wanted, the egg may end up streaky -___-

Then ladle it into a bowl and top with spring onions and seaweed.

So there it is, creamy Japanese porridge (obviously with zero dairy in it).

I love spring onions so I went overboard with it ;p

Coming up next: Naruto bento with ikura

Tags

anime, bento, character bento, ikura, Kyaraben, maguro, naruto, naruto bento, naruto kyaraben, sashimi, seaweed, seaweed art

Coming up soon! – Kyaraben (Character Bento) : Naruto and Rukia (Bleach)

Tags

bento, character bento, Kyaraben, naruto, rukia, seaweed, seaweed art

Mentaiko pasta

Tags

ikura, marinated cod roe, mentaiko, mentaiko cream pasta, mentaiko pasta, Pasta, seaweed

Yes, pasta again and this time, with mentaiko (marinated cod roe or pollock roe). By itself, the mentaiko is salty and sometimes spicy, which is why its normally eaten raw with rice (only if it’s sashimi quality) or used in cooking for flavor. It goes really well with fatty foods like cream and mayonnaise.

This dish is pretty simple and easy to prepare. Almost foolproof!

Ingredients (for 2 pax)

• 2 pieces of mentaiko (or 100gram mentaiko)
• Pasta of your choice (I used angel hair/quick cook spaghetti)
• 1 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 3 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
• 8 cloves garlic, minced
• Seaweed strips for topping
• Ikura for garnishing (optional)
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese for use in the sauce
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese for sprinkling over pasta
• 2 birds eye chilli/chilli padi, sliced
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 20g butter
• Handful of chopped chives for garnishing (optional)

Instructions 

• Cut the mentaiko sac

Use a spoon to scrape out all the contents into a small bowl. Remove the sac

• Remove sac from bowl

• Add 2-3 tbsp cream and mix into the mentaiko.

• The mentaiko cream mixture will make it much easier to combine into the pasta sauce later.

• Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add the minced garlic and sliced chilli padi
• Add in the rest of the cream once the garlic is golden and before the butter starts to brown. Simmer for a couple of minutes.

• Add in the mentaiko cream mixture and cheese

• Stir in thoroughly

• Add in the mayonnaise (this below picture is from a previous mentaiko pasta attempt) and stir to incorporate. Turn off the heat

• Cook the pasta 
• Meanwhile, prepare a pot of almost boiling water to poach your eggs and add the vinegar to the pot.
• And as I’m no expert in poaching eggs, here’s a website that shows you how to poach eggs 😉
• http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_poached_eggs/

• Drain the cooked pasta and immediately add it to the sauce. Toss over medium heat to combine before removing the pan from the fire.

• Dish out the pasta. As you can see, this amount could probably feed 3 but I was greedy ;(
• Make a little well in the centre, you’ll drop your poached egg into here later.

• Add the egg into the centre of the pasta and garnish with seaweed, chopped chives, cheese and ikura

And its done! Its a very rich dish so the tanginess from the japanese mayo and the spice from the chilli helps to dispel that sense of “jelakness”.