You can fight the sleep but not the dream

[venta]

I did promise that I wouldn't post about my dinner much any more. However, here is a bento from a week or two ago that I made to fulfill a promise to huskyteer...

I've been pottering along happily with my bento boxes, grabbing frozen rice to defrost each morning. Then suddenly one evening I thought, right tomorrow I'll have... er... oh. No, I won't. No rice.

Can I be bothered to cook rice from scratch in the morning? Er... probably not. If you're doing Japanese-style rice properly, it takes bloody ages. Hmm. Maybe tomorrow is a day for going to the work canteen.

Or... Hmm. I formed a plan, got a bit of smoked haddock out of the freezer to thaw, and went to bed.

The following morning I got up, washed a handful of basmati rice and threw it on to boil with turmeric. I rubbed the bit of fish with garam masala and powdered ginger, wrapped it in foil and popped it in the oven to bake. I stuck an egg on to boil. I chopped a piece of a portable mushroom up finely, and some spring onions.

And, er, I poached some celery in wine, which wasn't really very on-message but celery was the only thing I had on hand remote resembling a green vegetable. Spinach would have been a better bet.

The result... the deconstructed kedgeree bento:



As you can see, my ability to take in-focus pictures first thing in the morning hasn't improved.

It was moderately successful as a lunchbox. The rice - despite being alledgedly flavoured with turmeric, and having onion and mushroom mixed through it - was a little bland. I know the turmeric-flavouring works well for something you're going to eat hot, but it doesn't stand up well to being eaten cold.

Suggestions for improvement are welcome, though with a prep. time of nearly forty minutes this one ain't happening often.

Comments

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Crowded House, always take the weather with you. But I thought it was find, not fight. So it may be a completely different one.

And Kedgeree Bento sounds different...

[venta.livejournal.com]

One kudo to you. It was certainly intended to be Crowded House, but I can't guarantee that I got it exactly right :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

That looks yummy!

My preference for flavouring cold rice is olive oil and garlic, or cook the rice in stock instead of water in the first place... but neither is exactly super secret tech.

Looking at that pic, could I ask you for a quick tip: How do you go about peeling boiled eggs? Mine always end up falling apart before I have all the shell off.

[venta.livejournal.com]

At what stage does the olive oil and garlic get introduced to the rice? And what form is the garlic in?

Peeling eggs is a faff on, really. I don't think I use super-secret tech either, but here's what I do:

Boil eggs until done. Run under cold water for ever (this also stops the yolks from going that weird blue-y colour if you're not going to eat them for a while).

Bash egg on worktop (wall, head, passing child, etc) to crack the shell. Fiddle about getting the first bit off, get it stuck under your thumbnail, swear.

Under the shell is a layer of weird membrane. Tear that. Once you've got your finger under the membrane, it and the shell slide off the egg fairly easily.

Most of the time, anyway :) Sometimes it is just a matter of picking and fiddling at bits of shell for about a week.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

At what stage does the olive oil and garlic get introduced to the rice? And what form is the garlic in?

After cooking, but whilst still hot. If I'm the cook then it's squirty garlic (about 50p for a tube from most supermarkets), but real cooks look down their nose at that stuff so presumably there's something tedious you can do instead. ;-)

Sometimes it is just a matter of picking and fiddling at bits of shell for about a week.

Yes, that was my previous preferred method!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have a magical ceramic garlic grater (http://www.betterware.co.uk/ceramic-grater-plate-set.html) which makes pureed garlic really easy and means you don't have to have the horror of trying to wash up a garlic press afterwards.

Mind you, the squirty tube is probably still considerably easier! I don't have particular nose-down issues with squirty garlic, it's just the kind of thing I never think of.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Wow - weird gadget! Still, if it works that's pretty useful.

(Also reminds me I haven't got around to blogging that I tried the implausible garlic trick and that really works too!)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Wow, does it really? That wasn't just stunt garlic?

I wanted to try it, but haven't needed that much garlic peeled at once since I saw it (and figured it wouldn't work with a small amount).

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

It's... possible I still have quite a lot of garlic in the fridge as a result.

<looks shifty>

[triskellian]

I tried the implausible garlic trick, and it didn't work :-(

[venta.livejournal.com]

Wrong kind of garlic, I expect :)

I'm not entirely sure I own two sufficiently matching bowls to try it, actually...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

that looks great! -- and at only 2.99, how could anyone resist it. I usually just crush the clove with the flat of a knife, pick the skin out, and chop what's left, but yours looks like a lot more fun.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm slightly bitter because I paid rather more for mine :)

The plate copes really, really well with ginger, too, which is somewhat more faff otherwise. You end up with a neat little pile of puree, and a handlful of coarse fibrous stuff to throw away.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah, that sounds good, ginger really is a pain. I generally cheat and use frozen pureed, but this might tempt me back to the light side.

Plus, I guess if you collect the coarse, fibrous stuff, you could eventually stuff seat cushions with it, or spin it into doormats or something.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I now have to find 32 quid's worth of other stuff to get the free delivery… hmm…

[venta.livejournal.com]

Surely you have 10 friends who also might need a garlic grater as a Christmas present :)

[lnr]

I've found that it can help if you bash the egg all over, so it's very very cracked, rather than just a bit cracked, and that the round end tends to have a gap in making it easier to find your way under the membrane. It still sometimes takes a week of fiddling though.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Thanks - the more tips the better!

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Roll the egg, to break the shell but leaving it stuck to the membrane, and peel under running water. You don't have to cool it so much before-hand that way either.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

This one sounds like fun - might have to be tried!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Boiled eggs with peeled garlic for tea it is, then!

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

If once you've done the initial 'bash', you roll the egg wth careful pressure between palm & work top, it continues the disintegration around from the initial bash site - then when you get hold of the membrane, the shell peels away smoothly because it's in crazed shards attached to the membrane, rather than big bits that try to slash into the egg on departure.

You need to make that initial wallop first though - trying to get the eggshell to crack by pressing a structurally sound egg between palm & worktop may lead to exploded egg and/or shards of eggshell stickin in your hand.

This is one of those things like peeling a potato - simple & intuitive until you have to write it down rarer than just doing it...


(If you can bear the faff, quail eggs make an amazing kedgeree)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I love quail eggs, but have never felt I could bear the faff.

The Hollybush pub in Hampstead sells (as a bar snack) hard-boiled quail eggs and smoked salt. They really are fabulous, but the eggs arrive shell-on and I always end up thinking that, pretty as they are, I'd really rather someone else did the peeling for me.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, that does look good!