Holy crap face this was tasty. On the top left is a your basic nortimama furikake triangle rice ball wrapped in nori along with another triangle rice ball with smoked salmon inside. On the top right are pineapple squares and my tofu salad that I posted earlier. On the bottom is kimchee and.... AMAZING chicken meat balls. God this was a good lunch.
note:
I have formed a general concept for creating bento lunches: 1. The vast majority of items should be savory. In the example above, I consider every item to be savory except the kimchee and the pineapple. If I were to remove the tofu and avocado from the salad and remove the honey from the dressing, it would have then become a pickled side dish. 2. Each bento must have 1 and only 1 pickled side dish. I tried 2 pickled sides before and it was too overpowering. A bento lunch without a pickled side ends up tasting a bit monotonous and heavy. You need a slight sour note to balance everything. 3. Each bento must have 1, 2 sweet sides such as fruit, a desert, honey glazed squash, etc.
I also see bento in terms of having space for 8. 9 sections/items. In this example, the rice balls take up 2 secions, the pineapple 1, the salad 2, the kimchee 1, and the chicken 2. That's a total of 8 spaces. When thinking of a menu, I like to add in as many components as possible, and think of them in terms of how much space each one will take. I always aim for 8, 9 items/sections.
smoked salmon onigiri (triangle rice ball):
ingredients:
1. cooled rice
2. smoked salmon
3. strip of nori
recipe:
1. Start by flattening out the rice, then place a solid amount of salmon in the middle (just under half the volume of the rice in smoked salmon). The first time I made this, I put a small amount of salmon and it tasted too bland.
2. Gather the edges of the rice and cover the middle as best you can. Squeeze and cover any gaps and any spaces that the salmon is peaking out from.
3. Transfer the rice to plastic wrap and form a triangle.
4. Wrap nori sheet around.
chicken meatballs:
makes around 12 small-medium sized meatballs.
note:
I didn't have any ground chicken, but I did have plenty of chicken thighs on hand so I first removed the skin from them, cut them into even chunks, then pulsed them in a food processor. It's important to note that this will NOT resemble ground chicken from the super market in any way. It will pretty much look like pink vomit but DON'T fret, I assure you that when cooked, it will not only cook up fine and look exactly like chicken meatballs, it will taste better than any store bought ground chicken.
ingredients:
1. 4 chicken thighs de-skinned, de-boned, and cut into 1" chunks
2. 1/2 of a small onion
3. 2 tsp grated ginger
4. 1/2 tsp salt
5. 1 egg
6. 2 TBL corn starch
sauce:
7. 2 TBL soy sauce
8. 2 TBL mirin
9. 2 tsp sugar
finishing sauce:
10. 2 TBL extra virgin olive oil
recipe:
1. Add chicken pieces to a food processor and pulse 4-5 times. Scrape down sides and pulse another 4-5 times. Repeat this process until NO large chunks remain. The mixture will resemble pink mush, but don't be afraid to thoroughly pulse it until zero chunks are visible.
2. Add ground chicken into a large bowl then finely dice 1/2 of a small onion.
3. Add onion, grated ginger, salt, egg, and cornstarch to the chicken. Mix well until thoroughly combined.
note:
The mixture should be relatively wet. It should not resemble an italian meat ball mixture. It should be wetter than that.
4. Heat 2 TBL vegetable oil in a non-stick pan over medium high heat for 5 minutes (the entire bottom of the pan should be coated in a thin layer of oil. If any dry spots are visible, add in more oil until the entire bottom is just covered).
5. Break off small ping pong ball sized meat balls and gently roll them in between your palms into a ball shape. They will not become neat balls because they are so wet, but you do want a general ball shape.
6. Gently place into oil at 12 o'clock, then place subsequent meat balls in a clock work pattern around the pan. Start a smaller circle inside starting at 12 o'clock when there is no more room on the outside.
7. Repeat until all the chicken has been used.
8. Thoroughly wash and dry you hands, then using 2 spoons, check under the meat ball at 12 o'clock for browning. If it has browned and caramelized, flip over. Repeat this process, checking the meatballs in the same order you placed them into the pan.
9. After you have flipped each meat ball over once, cover the pan with a lid and let cook for 2 minutes.
10. Check all the meatballs for browning on both sides and flip if necessary. Lower the heat to medium low, cover and cook for another 5 minutes.
11. Meanwhile, combine soy sauce, mirin, and sugar into a small bowl. Taste and add more sugar as needed. You want the sauce to have an obvious sweetness to it but not be overly sweet. You also want to balance out the saltiness of the soy sauce so it is not too over powering.
12. Plate meat balls then pour sauce over them.
13. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over each meat ball. Make sure to get 1/2 tsp of oil onto each one.
note:
Originally, this dish called for a raw egg yolk to be used as a dipping sauce, but I didn't want to risk it, plus I ate this as bento so egg yolk sitting out at room temperature for hours wasn't safe. I then had the brilliant idea of using extra virigin olive oil instead, and it turned out to be amazing. The oil gives the meatballs a lovely silky, buttery finish. It really elevates simple chicken meatballs to something completely different.
No comments:
Post a Comment