Japanese food is probably one of Japan’s biggest contribution to the world. From sushi, to ramen, to sashimi, to bento boxes, Japanese food makes our lunches and dinners more than just nourishment, but a visually and palate appealing affair too.
The “problem” is that most of us think that preparing Japanese food requires years of training, expensive ingredients, and a certain eye to detail. While this is true to a certain extent, it doesn’t have to be so.
Preparing a bento box at home, for yourself and your family, is after all not that difficult and actually quite affordable. Real Bento. Fresh and easy lunchbox recipes from a Japanese working mom by Kanae Inoue (Tuttle Publishing, 2020) brings that point home!
The author, a cook and food blogger from Japan, has been making betos for her family for many, many years and she has become quite the expert at preparing a bento box in a very short time. As in: just 10 minutes! Her new book, Real Bento, is a treasure throve for all of us out there who want to try our hand at making our own bentos, in our own kitchen, for our own family. Now, wouldn’t that be great?
Kanae Inoue’s recipe book actually reads like a personal diary, one that my own mother also keeps – littered with newspaper and magazine cutouts of recipes from all over the world. Apart from the 200 recipes and 22 bento box combinations, Real Bento is littered with testimonials and real life stories of Inoue’s family. To that, add the 250 colored photos of dishes and ingredients and you have more than just a cookbook. You have a real coffee table book that you can display for your guest or browse while chilling out and thinking of new food ideas.
The book is divided into four sections: an introduction followed by three chapters. The introduction outlines Kanae Inoue’s mission statement “as the bento chef of the family” which includes the following two main characteristics of a bento box:
“- easy and quick to make, using inexpensive ingredients
– really delicious, nice to look at, and something my daughters will want to show off to their friends.”
If you’re new to Japanese cooking, then the section Basic Ingredients for Bentos is a real eye opener. It includes all the Bento Staples plus the Japanese and other Asian Ingredients that you’ll need to make any of the recipes mentioned in the book. Apart from pictures and very succinct information, Inoue also mentions where these ingredients can be bought and what the substitutes may be in case they’re not available in your home country.
Actually, this is what makes Real Bento a real bento cookbook for Western audiences! The fact that it does not just assume that your kitchen is stacked full with all the ingredients of a five-star Japanese restaurant, but that our kitchens are just that, our own home kitchens.
It is highly commendable than the book was updated and adapted from its original Japanese edition (published in 2015). Even the translator herself, Makiko Itoh, a well-known bilingual writer who specializes in Japanese food and culture, contributed a recipe that bridges the gap between the Western world and the Japanese kitchen: Making Rolled Omelets in a Regular Frying Pan!
Don’t feel overwhelmed by the abundance of bento boxes variations that the book presents. You can just follow the great recipes for a week’s worth of everyday bento in the section A Week of Real Bento! Then, as you gain confidence in your bento-making skills, you can move on to picking and choosing your favorite bento ideas.
Chapter 1 starts with the author’s 7 rules for quick, delicious bentos. The rule that really stuck to me was rule no. 6: “Fully utilize your frying pan, microwave and grill” which recommends wrapping ingredients in aluminum foil (or baking paper I might add) which saves you a massive clean up session after.
Since we all have different favorite tastes, the recipes in this chapter are arranged by seasoning: from sweet, to salty, to soy sauce flavored (to many other options).
Chapter 2 deals with time-saving techniques that will help you “make bentos easily in just ten minutes in the morning!” Rule 2 is just brilliant: “Grill 3 items at the same time!” For each rule, you then have several bento box ideas to try your hand at.
Chapter 3 presents tips for creating good-looking bentos… Yes, because bentos must not only be tasty but also appeal to your aesthetic side. The tips included in this section range from advice on using multicolored ingredients to the arrangement of the food in the box.
Real Bento by Kanae Inoue ends with an index of main ingredients which is great for those who are vegetarian or who want to avoid a certain ingredient (due to allergies or religious beliefs). It can be easily used to find recipes based on ingredients. Maybe you just have cabbage and carrots in the fridge…
I’m a big lover of Japanese food and I have my favorite spots where I get my food from, but now I realized that I don’t have to wait until the weekend to travel all the way downtown to my favorite Japanese restaurant. I can now always enjoy a bento box lunch at work. All I have to do is just follow Inoue’s clear and concise recipes.
Enjoy your food! Shokuji o o tanoshimi kudasai! 食事をお楽しみ下さい!
