Bento #29: Chicken Tsukune Rice Burger with Spinach Oshitashi
The rice burger makes a comeback! This time, it is accompanied by chicken tsukune. To make the chicken tsukune, I followed Maki's recipe on her blog JustBento, and Julie at Julie's Raw Ambition gave me the idea of spinach oshitashi last week. I must admit that I didn't have the time to wilt the spinach, so I blanched them instead. Thanks to the two of them, I have tried 2 new items for the first time. Experimenting is fun, isn't it? (But don't tell my guinea pigs.)I made my rice burgers similar to how I did the last time, except that I did not knead them this time. Even so, they held their shape after frying. I supposed kneading is
redundant. The tsukune chicken patties are assembled between the rice burgers with grilled onions. The spinach cup will need to be removed before heating tomorrow.Hubby's box (above) has extra room and so he gets some cut white peaches. Mine on the right only has room for 2 items. I think it's a good size meal still.
I finally succumbed and bought a real bento box. It came in the mail today. Now I need to figure Monday's menu to work with my new 2 tier box.
Maki added an excellent write-up on rice burgers (with photos too!) and a vegan version of the rice burger on 9/5/08. Take a look. If you love rice burgers, it's worth a read. - edited 9/27/08
I'm glad the tsukune turned out well :) You have a lovely blog.
Thank you, Maki!!! I hope you're fine with me linking to your recipes. You have plenty of really good bento resources there.
wow, love the chicken tsukune!
Hi there! I'm glad you enjoyed the oshitashi. By the way, I was in Viet-town last week (area of Orlando) hitting the Asian markets and was planning on buying some nice wooden bento boxes...but then I had to pass. At $50 a pop, I thought surely there must be something more reasonable out there!
Hi Julie
The oshitashi is great! I made some for my coworkers and they enjoyed it too. Personally, I felt I should have diluted the soy-mirin-sesame oil dressing a little more, but they didn't think it was too overpowering. What we found out is the extra dressing taste even better when we dipped the pieces of rice into it.
But yeah, $50 for a bento box is a little stiff. I got a quote for 2 jyubakos & 2 furoshikis from Japan once; that came up to over $100. Fortunately, I'm surrounded by enough sensible people to know I won't be spending that.
Well, I tried to link some of the sites I know carry really nice boxes with reasonable US shipping, but blogger comment box is being a pooper. I'll share some of the links later when I get home.
Hmm... you guys have me wanting to make oshitashi now... kekeke... I've been having headaches over what kind of veg to make for my boxes!
And speaking of bento boxes, I can't wait to use the new bento box I got for my hubby this week from MUJI. Term's about to begin, which means the bento kitchen is about to get back to work too... :P
Hurray! I've been missing your pretty bentos, girlfriend!
I love bento boxes - they are just so nice to look at and makes everything so organized! Thanks for stopping by :)
Hi Ben, thks for dropping by my blog. The rice burger is a very creative idea!