Poodles in Love Bento

I have always enjoyed to look at BentoZen's bento creations because I think that her bentos always look so pretty and elegant. My bento today is inspired by her "Poodles in Love Bento". I wanted to make my rice pink as well, but then I realised too late that I didn't have any beet juice left. So well, I used tomato sauce instead to colour the rice, but I don't think that orange looks so good as the background. This bento would look much lovelier with a pretty pink...!

The two poodles and the three flowers are made out of different types of cheese and nori and the sides include some cherry tomatoes, cucumber/carrot salad, two fried shrimps, one carved radish and three slices of tangerine.

Christmas Bento Contest

Christmas is again on its way and since the CasaBento team really enjoyed to see the wonderful Halloween bentos created by many talented bento makers all over the world from the previous Halloween contest, they decided to organise another bento contest and this time, Xmas-themed :D)!

PRIZES

 

1ST PRIZE - A Fukuro Round Bento Box, a Traditional Fukuro insulated bottle,  a pair of Fukuro chopsticks and a matching Fukuro Bento Bag

 2ND PRIZE - A Red Lego Bento Box and a Concorde XL Black Thermal Bag

 

 3RD PRIZE - A Green Concorde Mini Box and a pair of Green Concorde Chopsticks

4TH PRIZE - A Red Marche Thermal Bag, a Red Tokyo Mini Box and a Green Tokyo Mini Box

 

 

5TH PRIZE - A Green Marche Thermal Bag, a Red Tokyo Mini Box and a Green Tokyo Mini Box

HOW TO ENTER

Each participant should submit two photos with the following details: last name, first name, postal address, date of birth together with a description of the bento in the photo (ingredients, name of the bento box used, etc) to the following address: contest@casabento.com


CONTEST PERIOD
The contest ends on December 20th, 2012 at 11:59:59 P.M. Paris Time. All dates are subject to change. 

 
JUDGES
Your photos will judged by:

- Susanne Kaluza (Norway)
- July from des Bento de July (France)
- Shirley from Little Miss Onigiri (Singapore)
- Sarah from Bento und Mehr (Germany)
- CasaBento Girl's Team
- CasaBento Boy's Team 

Each Entry will be evaluated and scored based on the following:

• artistic merit - bento skills and use of colour
• creativity and originality - considering the representation of the Contest theme “Christmas”, as well as the unique and novel approach to use of CasaBento products
• quality of photo submitted
• adherence to the the Contest Rules

For more information about the contest, please visit CasaBento.

Zigeunerschnitzel - Gypsy Style Schnitzel

A few days ago I made Jägerschnitzel aka Hunter Style Schnitzel. Today I came up with another popular dish from Germany, which is also schnitzel, but it is served with a different type of sauce that is Zigeuner sauce, or gypsy style sauce. As the name suggests, the sauce is slightly more piquant and has appealing, bright, red colour. Very tasty and definitely worth a try!

Zigeunerschnitzel - serves 2

The Cutlets

• 2 chicken/pork/veal cutlets
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbs oyster sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• Oil for frying

The Gypsy Sauce

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 bell pepper, sliced
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp cayenne powder (or to taste)
• Beef/Chicken powder to taste
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 250 ml cream
• Sugar, to taste
• Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

The Cutlets

1. Set the eggs, flour and bread crumbs in three different shallow bowls.
2. Add oyster sauce, salt and pepper to the egg bowl and mix well.
3. One at a time, dredge the cutlet in the flour, then dip in the egg mixture and coat with the bread crumbs.
4. Repeat step 3 one more time (optional).
5. Deep-fry the cutlets until golden brown.
6. Serve with gypsy sauce, salad and fries.

The Gypsy Sauce

1. Sauté chopped onion and garlic with 1 Tbsp of oil.
2. Add tomato paste, ground paprika, cayenne powder and beef powder.
3. Pour the cream and mix well.
4. Add bell pepper slices and cook for 1 minute.
5. Dust with flour and season with sugar and pepper. Cook until sauce is thickened.

Sunflower Bears Bento

These two lovely bear onigiris are filled with chicken teriyaki and mayo. I  covered the rice balls with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) which make the bears look pretty fluffy. The nori details were punched out from the pink nori punch below and the white nose is made out of quail egg.

Source: CasaBento

You can easily get these nori punches from CasaBento or other bento suppliers in Amazon or Ebay.

The two little chicks are also quail eggs. They look quite worried as they know that they will be gobbled down by the two little bears quite soon. Fortunately for the bears, they don't know that they'll be gobbled down by me soon after I finish writing down this post, that's why they're still smiling ;).

  Have a great week ahead everyone!

Jägerschnitzel - Hunter Style Schnitzel

Jägerschnitzel or Hunter Style Schnitzel is one of the most popular schnitzel varieties in Germany. It is breadcrumb-coated veal/pork/chicken which is served with creamy mushroom sauce. Since it's so well-liked over here, you can easily get instant Jägerschnitzel mixes in most German supermarkets, be they big or small.

I love to use panko bread crumbs instead of the usual western-style bread crumbs. Panko bread crumbs are much coarser and as a result, your schnitzel will be crispier and tastier :)!


Jägerschnitzel - serves 2

The Cutlets

• 2 chicken/pork/veal cutlets
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbs oyster sauce (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• Oil for frying

The Mushroom Sauce

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 Tbsp chopped onion
• 8 -10 champignons, sliced
• Beef/Chicken powder to taste
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 2 Tbsp white wine
• 200 ml cream
• Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

The Cutlets

1. Set the eggs, flour and bread crumbs in three different shallow bowls.
2. Add oyster sauce, salt and pepper to the egg bowl and mix well.
3. One at a time, dredge the cutlet in the flour, then dip in the egg mixture and coat with the bread crumbs.
4. Repeat step 3 one more time (optional).
5. Deep-fry the cutlets until golden brown.
6. Serve with mushroom sauce, salad and fries.

The Mushroom Sauce

1.  Sauté the chopped onion with 1 Tbsp of oil.
2. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 - 3 minutes.
3. Season with beef powder and dust with flour.
4. Add white wine, cream and pepper to taste. Cook until sauce is thickened.

Fried Noodles Bento

I wanted to make charaben today, but in the end I was too lazy and just made a portion of good ol' traditional bento box ;).

The box contains plain fried noodles, pan-fried gyoza, baby carrots, pan-fried garlic chicken, soy sauce egg, a piece of radish and cherry tomato.

 

Happy Koala Bento

A simple but yummy bento with Korean Fried Chicken, pan-fried gyoza, soy-sauce egg and koala onigiri.

The beautiful pink bento box is one of the many goodies which I got from Bento&Co. Remember the contest which I took part in some time ago?

The cute milk bottle-shaped seal is also from Bento&Co. It's supposed to be placed in the fridge and everytime you open the fridge, it will speak and even complain to you in Japanese - cute but can be irritating in the long run;). But now that the battery needs to be recharged, I am somehow missing that pesky noise which always greeted me everytime I left the fridge open for too long. It's even got a name: Fredoline ;).

 

Wishing you all a great weekend!