My Bountiful Bento

My wonderful partner Nifer got me a fabulous gift of a steel Zojiruchi Stainless Bento Lunch Jar. It’s pretty slick. It’s not something I ever asked for but it fits right into my desire to start bringing lunchs from home rather than buy the crap from the food court here at work.

To kick it off I picked up a Bento cook book over the weekend. Inspired by one of the recipes, I picked up some ingredients at the store and last night dove into making dinner with plans to leave some aside for lunch. My concoction differed from the actual recipe, and I don’t cook often (mostly I’m the prep cook/cleanup crew), so I was a bit crossing my fingers. However, happily turned out delicious! Nifer scraped her plate clean last night and I had more than enough for an incredible lunch today. I gotta say it was as good today for lunch as it was last night!

Papaya Ginger Beef with Sliced Daikon on Brown Rice and a Side of Saut?©ed Shredded Potato, Daikon, and Red Pepper.

Main Dish Ingredients

• 1lb – thin sliced beef (I sliced up an inexpensive tri-tip steak which turned out great)
• 1 1/2 cup – daikon radish sliced in long 3-4″ strips
• 2 tbl – soy sauce (I used a garlic soy sauce marinade but normal soy sauce will do)
• 1 tbl – sake
• 1 tbl – ginger juice from a freshly grated ginger root (it’s fine to have some pieces of ginger in there but avoid big chunks)
• 1/2 cup – pickled papaya (with juice)
• olive oil*
• sesame oil
• salt and pepper (I use a fancy white pepper but normal pepper should do)
• 1 cup – brown rice

Side Dish Ingredients

• 1/2 cup – potato (about 1/2 of a potato)
• 1/2 cup – daikon (about an equal amount of daikon to the half potato)
• 1 whole – red pepper
• olive oil
• sesame oil
• salt and pepper (I use a fancy white pepper but normal pepper should do)

*Note: all my oil measurements are approximations as I just kinda added what seemed right. When I saute I use oil kinda like a spice: add a bit at first then maybe more if it seems like it needs it.

Cooking Instructions

1. Make the brown rice; Don’t start the rest of the cooking till this is nearly done

Side Dish (it’ll keep so we make that first)

1. Shred potato and daikon into thin strips using food processor
2. Shove the red pepper though the food processor (it’ll just kinda grate it rather then make strips which is fine)
3. Mix potato, daikon and red pepper together and drain/squeeze most of the water out of it
4. Add ~1/2 tbl olive oil* and a drop of sesame oil to pan and heat
5. Add potato, daikon and red pepper and saute for about 10minutes
6. Add salt and pepper to taste

Main Dish

1. Pore about ~1/2 tbl of olive oil* and a drop of sesame oil into a pan and heat it
2. Throw daikon strips into the pan and saute for about 1-2 minutes (they should be only slightly softened)
3. Pore another ~1 tbl of olive oil* and drop of sesame oil into the pan
4. Throw sliced beef into the pan and cook till it’s about browned but still slightly rare
5. Pore in soy sauce, sake and stir
6. Add pickled papaya and ginger juice and stir
7. Cook for about 10 minutes till beef is fully done and all the flavors are nice and infused together
8. Add salt and pepper to taste

Serves enough for three, or in my case two people for dinner and enough left for a nice sizable amazing lunch.