non-bento #26: the very hungry caterpillar
August 25, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - american, bento blog - non bento Tags: avocado, sushi, the very hungry caterpillar
6 comments
When I did the Bento Contest for EpiCute and My Food Looks Funny site, I saw some very interesting requests. And one of them was the Very Hungry Caterpillar. I thought it’d be a bit too easy to make a bento of it, so I didn’t pick it. But it turns out my boyfriend loved the book as a child, and that was enough reason for me to make it with food!
The local market I always shop at has a decent fresh fish selection and they also have a little sushi counter where a guy makes sushi and sells them in a package. When I was looking at it, this idea came to my mind.
Non-bento #26: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Created and eaten on: 8/21/2010
For this, I decided to try using the hangiri (wooden shallow bowl to mix sushi rice in) I got recently. Hangiri literally means “cutting rice.” Because when you mix the rice for sushi, you move the spatula to cut/slice rice sideways rather than “mixing” it. I always wanted to get one of these so I was happy to find this one at Sunrise mart (Japanese supermarket) in NYC. I don’t make sushi that regularly, so this was good enough for me.
It's up to 3 cup of rice, comes with a wooden shallow bowl, two spatulas and two sushi roller. It was $19.99, and you can also buy it from Amazon.com too.
*If you’re serious about making sushi and considering buying a hangiri, make sure you buy the one made with cypress. The one I bought is made with pine, which is a lot cheaper than cypress, but it won’t last as long as the one made with cypress.
The spatulas and sushi roller that came with it were very small. I was wondering why, but then I realized it was for “hand rolls” as you can see in the package. Duh.
On the left: The spatulas and sushi rollers that came with it. On the right: A regular spatula and sushi roller.
I wet the hangiri first, then dumped the freshly cooked rice in it. I cheated and used the sushi rice powder though. (for those who want to make sushi rice from scratch, check out “how to make sushi rice.”)
The rice came out definitely better than the rice mixed in a metal bowl. It’s very easy to mix rice in a shallow big space without crushing rice grains. Also with a regular bowl, even if you wet the bowl, some rice still stick to the bowl. But with the wooden hangiri, the wood absorbs the moisture so the rice won’t stick to it at all.
This really isn’t meant to be a how-to post, but I took some pictures as I made it, so I’m going to post them here.
I put avocado, fake crab meat, and scallion inside this time, but I don’t think there are any rules to what you can put inside. (Sorry for some photos being a bit orangey. We didn’t use the lighting kit we have this time.)
Put sushi rice on the half of seaweed.
Put it upside down on a plastic wrap.
We put avocado, fake crab meat and scallion inside this time.
And roll it!
Take off the plastic cover, and carefully put thinly sliced avocado on top of the roll.
Cover it with a plastic wrap.
And very gently roll it again. (Don't squish the avocado.)
You definitely want to use the sharpest knife you have. I cut it with the plastic cover on so I could hold the roll as I cut it.
After you cut the roll, carefully place them onto a plate just like the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
No special technique involved! Just make a wave with the avocado roll.
And make a small sushi with tuna, make the eyes with egg sheet (see “how to make an egg sheet”) and lettuce, cut seaweed for the mouth, and purple cabbage for antenna. If you don’t have an egg sheet ready, you can also use cheese.
He looks kind of surprised than hungry. Maybe he realized that he's the one that gets eaten this time.
I cut seaweed for his tiny little legs.
This very hungry caterpillar sure makes me hungry.
Even his cute little butt looks tasty.
The avocado we picked was maybe too ripe. Ripe avocado is melty and tasty, but very fragile and starts to change its color rather fast.
I know lemon juice is known to preserve avocado’s color, so maybe I’ll try sprinkle some on avocado next time.
I didn’t really make anything special for this Very Hungry Caterpillar dinner. I just put them in a certain way, and added a couple of things for his face and legs. If you’re feeling super lazy, you can even buy avocado rolls! 
You can use a mini tomato for his face if you aren’t into raw fish. We also made salmon and tuna sushi addition to the Very Hungry Caterpillar. It’s amazing how cheap it is to make sushi at home.
Were we still hungry after eating the hungry caterpillar, dozen pieces of salmon sushi and dozen pieces of tuna sushi? NO. We were stuffed. We actually couldn’t finish them all that night and ate them next day. But we know we can always get hungry for the very hungry caterpillar any day. Especially my boyfriend!
As I mentioned in the beginning, there are some very interesting requests on EpiCute and My Food Looks Funny sites. Maybe I might try making them later!
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
how to prepare shrimp for sushi
March 6, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: shrimp, sushi
4 comments
As I wrote in a previous post, I made sushi on Valentine’s day. I usually just use salmon and tuna for sushi, but since we were watching District 9, we decided to have shrimp (because they looks like “prawns” ) as well.
Shrimp is probably easier to get than a good block of salmon and tuna sashimi, and it is also very easy to prepare it for sushi. I’m sure a lot of people cook shrimp at home, and the only difference between regular shrimp and shrimp for sushi is that shrimp for sushi is straight and flattened. I’m not even sure if you can call this a “recipe”, but I thought it’d be nice to know a little trick like this.
[How to prepare shrimp for sushi]
- raw shrimp with shell (not cleaned or cooked)
- salt
– toothpicks
– skewers
*If you’re interested in making sushi rice from scratch, check out “How to make sushi rice.”
Click to continue reading "how to prepare shrimp for sushi"
how to make sushi rice
March 6, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: sushi
6 comments
When I posted about our “sushi night” on my blog before, I mentioned about “Sushi-noko” which was like powdered vinegar to make sushi rice. This time I decided to make sushi rice from scratch with ingredients you can easily get at a regular supermarket. Actually, it’s really not hard to make sushi rice, but the recipe requires you to work really fast. I don’t usually like cooking food that is “time-sensitive” due to my laziness, but freshly cooked sushi rice does taste better than the one made with vinegar powder.
[Vinegar mix for 3 cups of sushi rice] *( ) for 2 cup of sushi
- White vinegar 3 1/2 tbs (2 1/2 tbs)
- Sugar 2tbs (1tbs and 1ts)
- Salt 1 heaping ts (1ts)
EDIT: I forgot to mention a very important thing!
“3 cups of rice” is when measured with a rice measuring cup. (It usually comes with a rice cooker.)
3 cups of rice is 1 cup and a half of uncooked rice with a regular measuring cup.
1 cup of rice measured with a rice measuring cup = roughly a 1/2 cup of rice measure with a regular cup
*I use a regular mixing bowl, but a shallow bowl is ideal for making sushi rice because it’s easier to get the air between the rice and mix.
Click to continue reading "how to make sushi rice"
Valentine’s day, prawns, and high-tech toilet
February 20, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: Japanese high-tech toilet, sushi
2 comments
I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s day and President day!
I realized I hadn’t blogged this week! O_O It feels like time flies even faster when you have a long weekend and a full-time job.
My boyfriend and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s day. But it was Sunday so we decided to go to IKEA (romantic, isn’t it?). We failed to get the furniture we wanted, but succeeded to get Swedish meatballs and “prawn cheese spread.” We’ve been trying to get a certain piece of furniture from IKEA but it hasn’t been very successful… My boyfriend did a comic about it on his site, so check it out!
After we came home, we just played video games. He played Batman: Arkham Asylum and I played Okami for the Wii. At night, we made sushi and watched District 9 on Blu-ray. We had tuna, salmon and shrimp. How appropriate to watch District 9 while eating shrimp (prawn), right? =D
It’s so easy to prepare shrimp for sushi. Also, it’s easier and cheaper to get fresh shrimp in the U.S. than fresh salmon sashimi or tuna. So if you’re fan of shrimp sushi, you should try making it by yourself. I’ll do a quick how-to prepare shrimp for sushi soon. Probably this weekend.
I made two un-flattened shrimp to make a heart, so it was a very romantic Valentine's after all. =D
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non-bento #6: “real” rice cake
February 28, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - non bento Tags: rice cake, sushi
3 comments
This isn’t a bento, but I really liked how it turned out and it was easy, so I’m going to post it!
Like I mentioned, my bento caught up with my blog, and I didn’t make bento for Saturday… So I was thinking about doing a dinner blog. But I got up earlier than usual for a Saturday morning and went to the city to shop for a new game (“Tatsunoko VS Capcom for Wii ) today, so when I came home, I was pretty tired and decided to take a nap.
Not a good idea. orz
I wanted to cook salmon, but the fish market was already closed. So I got online and looked for an easy recipe for the dinner and found this!
non-bento #4: Real Rice Cake
Created and eaten on: 3/1/2009
