Hey everyone! this is actually my first post in the brand new "Cooking" section of my blog. First I want to mention that the "Cooking" is more based on my personal adventure as I've always wanted to try to cook at home for as it's a useful skill to have and I figured that it'd be a great idea to post my adventure on my blog as well!.
Whilst majority of the recipes are not my original recipe, since i'm a complete beginner. I have tweaked some of the recipes to suit my tastes and will be posting the recipe I used as reference below. I want to use the blog as a reference to showcase all the cooking 'adventures' I have embarked on over how ever long I keep blogging for!
As literally everything I post will be my first time cooking the sorted dish unless stated otherwise, I will be linking the recipes I've used. Well, let's begin!
The above photo are majority of the ingredients I have used to make the bento from scratch, you can find them in the recipe links below.
Bento Attempt 1
The concept for my first cooking adventure is 'Bento', which is a Japanese-styled lunch box which usually consists of numerous dishes. The reason for the 'Bento' concept is because my friends decided it was a great idea to have a Bento session for fun and I figured "hey, why not use this as an excuse to stop being lazy and start learning how to cook"
Dashimaki Tamago
The main dish of the first bento is the Dashimaki-Tamago, which is a Japanese egg roll which involves a Japanese stock called dashi.
I tried making one with and without Dashi, and found out that the dashi-infused egg roll had more flavour and a softer texture.
Ingredients for Dashimaki Tamago (combined in a bowl)
4 eggs
4 tbsp Dashi
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp mirin
2 pinches of salt
For the Dashimaki-Tamago, I used a small 12-inch round pan.
To be honest, I had to cook it 2-3 times until I got the hang of rolling the egg into the perfect shape and maintaining the soft and fluffy texture. Definitely a difficult dish for a beginner such as myself but the taste is AMAZING!
Though a heads up, if you do decide to make dashimaki tamago. Make sure you prepare the dashi the day before unless you want to sit down and wait for 1 and a half hours like I did since the process is quite time-consuming.
Make sure to get a bamboo rolling mat as well, since it's crucial for the shaping of the dashimaki-tamago and the rolling of the sushi roll (which I will explain below)
Recipe for Dashi;
http://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-make-dashi
(I used an extra egg compared to this recipe since I wanted a thicker roll)
Recipe for Dashimaki-Tamago;
http://www.justonecookbook.com/tamagoyaki-japanese-rolled-omelette/
For the rest of the bento, I decided to make my own hand roll sushi which I will go more indepth below. I used the leftover dashimaki-tamago and made it into a poor attempt of a nigiri (not too bad for a first time haha) and added sliced cucumber topped with Japanese Kewpie Mayo for a side dish. In the end I finished it off with some chopped green onions and sesame seed and sprinkled it over.
Bento Attempt 2
Since we had 2 seperate 'bento' sessions, I decided to make a similar one but with some grilled salmon, rice topped with chopped roasted seaweed and sliced tomatoes.
Hand Roll Sushi
To be honest, I first thought rolling sushi would be pretty easy. But boy was I wrong! I wasn't sure if I simply wasn't doing it correctly or if I stuffed up on the ingredient preperation, but overall it tasted good.
Ingredients for Sushi Rice
(1 rice bowls worth)
1 bowl of cooked short grain rice
2/3 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp dashi
The great thing about sushi rolls is that you can put absolutely whatever you want when you're making them at home. For my case, I made a tuna and mayo with cucumber filling, and another roll with a teriyaki glazed grilled chicken with mayo and cucumber.
Recipe for Sushi Roll; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLRL18LvVyo
As this was my first time cooking dishes I've never tried before, I can say i was quite happy with the outcome. Safe to say my bento compared to all my friends was not that amazing but it was perfect for a filling lunch and is definitely fun to make as it utilizes creativity and you can use almost anything for a bento as well.
Anyways this concludes my first cooking adventure! I hope you enjoyed it :)
