Sunday, January 5, 2014

Monochromatic Green Bento

I thought I would try my hand at a few monochromatic bento box lunches. One of the rules of bento is to include 5 different colors. This makes sense, to insure that your lunch has a variety of foods. However, sometimes you gotta break the rules. I present: Green Bento!

In the left container: steamed broccoli, cucumber slices, steamed green beans, fried bamboo rice with edamame, and kiwi slices. In the right container: fried bamboo rice with edamame topped with pan fried turkey cutlet and herbs.

While this bento does not have 5 different colors, I do have protein (the egg whites in the fried rice, as well as the edamame and turkey cutlet), starch (rice), vegetables, and fruit. 

I made a marinade for the turkey cutlet using Italian Parsley and cilantro, and reserved some of the marinade (before I put the turkey in it!) to put on top of the poultry after I pan fried it. The marinade also contains olive oil, salt, pepper, a drop of sesame oil, and Yuzu Ponzu sauce.

Bamboo rice is a light green rice that has been infused with bamboo extract. It does retain a slight green tinge after cooking and it is very pretty. I used Yuzu Ponzu sauce when frying the rice so as not to turn it brown with regular shoyu. I also added fresh parsley to the egg white in the rice, for more green color.

Here is the bento box I used for my green bento. This is a fun two tiered bento box in the shape of a frog. And I would say the best thing to pair with this bento is the Austrian wine, Grüner Veltliner. (Grün is German for Green!)

Happy Bento-ing!