Cheburashka Soboro Bento

Have you ever heard of Cheburashka? I had not, until one reader from France, Elo', commented under my Dragon Rilakkuma bento: "Do you know "tcheburacha" (Чебурашка)? It's the phonetic name of a famous Russian character, he's really loved by children, I thought it could be an inspiration for a charaben, with his big ears and his sad face." I googled the character and found some pictures from the net, including the background story from Wikipedia.

Cheburashka is a funny little creature, unknown to science, who lives in the tropical forest. He accidentally gets into a crate of oranges, eats his fill, and falls asleep. The crate is eventually delivered to a grocery store in an unnamed town where the rest of the main story unfolds. Cheburashka is a name given to the character by the puzzled store manager who finds the creature in the crate when he opens it. The salesman takes the animal out and sits him on the table, but his paws are numb after the long time spent in the crate, and he tumbles down ("cheburakhnulsya" (чебурахнулся), a Russian colloquialism, "tumbled" in English) from the table onto the chair and then from the chair, where he could not sit, for the same reason, onto the floor. The store manager, who witnesses the scene, called him Cheburashka. (Source: Wikipedia)

I thought he looked quite adorable and not too complicated to make, so I'd promised Elo' to make the Cheburashka bento in the near future - I know it's been quite some time now, but I hope you like this Cheburashka bento, Elo' :)!

In the beginning I wanted to make him from meat patties, but today I just didn't feel like eating meat patties, so I decided to make the character from rice mixed with spicy pork soboro (Soboro simply means seasoned finely chopped meat, egg, fish or vegetables, etc, usually used as toppings for steamed rice) and the facial features from cheese and nori.

Spicy Pork Soboro

• 250 grams ground pork
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 tablespoon sake (or cooking wine)
• 2 tablespoons hot bean paste
• 1 tablespoon Szechuan chili paste
• 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
• A pinch of sugar

Instructions

• Heat your skillet and add 1 tablespoon cooking oil.
• Toss in the ground pork and cook until the meat is slightly brown.
• Add sake, hot bean paste, Szechuan chili paste, soy sauce and sugar.
• Stir-fry the meat for a few minutes until it's completely cooked.

TUTORIAL

Now I want to show you how to make deli-meat flower, because a few people have been asking me to show the step-by-step pictures. The pictures below are rather small, but I hope you can still recognise them. Making deli-meat flower is actually very easy and there are several methods to make it, but the one below is the method which I like to use because I think the flower holds together better.

With a slice of deli-meat you can make 2 flowers.

1. You need: a slice of deli meat and a kitchen knife.
2. Cut the deli meat in half.
3. Cut lines in the middle of the deli-meat, but not all the way.
4. Fold the deli meat in half.
5. Roll it up!
6. Keep rolling!
7. And voilà - you get one deli meat flower :).

My bento box today is filled with: Cheburashaka-shaped onigri (rice mixed with spicy pork soboro), chopped omelet, two pieces of broccoli, two pieces of cheese flowers, two deli-meat flowers, one piece of radish, rucola and four mini cheese flowers.

BENTO GIVEAWAY ANNOUNCEMENT

I'd also like to use the chance now to announce the two lucky winners of my bento giveaway: Mieke (first winner) from the Netherlands and Lyn Trinix from Singapore (second winner) :D)! I wish everyone who has participated could get something, unfortunately, it's quite impossible...:(. Maybe, one day when I was a millionaire ;)!! All in all there were 75 people who participated including several people who contacted me through e-mail. So, thank you so much, everyone, for joining in this event :). I hope the people who don't win this time wouldn't get too upset, there will still be other giveaways or contests being held here in the future. So stay tuned :)!

Winners, you'll be contacted shortly, you'll have to provide me with your address so that CasaBento can send you the prize :).