Bento #13

I have been lazy waking up earlier in the morning to prepare bento for Hubby. So there's not much decoration aka arrangement on his bento this time. It's basically placing all the sushi I made last night in the lunch box for him to bring to work. Even the pictures that I took for this bento was kinda last minute. I grabbed my camera and snapped them while my car was heating up in our car porch.

Haiz.. Why am I so lazy.... I should have wake up earlier so that everything wouldn't be done in such a rush manner. Nevertheless, Hubby was happy with his bento. :)

Sushi bento

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Sushi Sushi Sushi

We will be having Japanese food for dinner tonight. To be more specific, we are having SUSHI! Japanese food is always my favourite. Whenever there's special occasions, I'll always take the opportunity to have Japs food as Hubby always give me the 'authority' to choose what to eat. Hehe... *evil grin*

I had placed the recipe for the preparing sushi rice below. Kindly have look if you're interest to make some home-made sushi. Enjoy the fun of rolling and preparing your very own home-made sushi. The filling used are up to your imagination and liking. We can basically used any filling as long as it can hold up in the roll.

Interested for sushi tonight? Yumz...

Different types of Inari Sushi (topped with any toppings you desired e.g corns, prawn roe, cucumber and etc)

California Ura Maki (inside-out sushi roll)

Gunkan sushi (sushi rice wrapped with seaweed and topped with prawn roe)

Maki- sushi (crabstick and Japanese cucumber with mayo)

Edameme.. Good to have on its own..

Ingredients

2 cups sushi rice
2 cups water

4 tablespoons sushi vinegar/rice vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons mirin

kelp leaf (optional)

Methods

1. Rinse the rice 3-5 times. Place rice to drain in a strainer.
2. Drain 30 minutes.
3. While rice is draining, combine vinegar,sugar, salt and mirin together in a bowl and mix well.
4. If using a kelp leaf,it should be about 2 inch long.
5. Wipe it lightly, cut small slits to make it look like a comb and add it to a pot along with the water.
6. Add rice to the pot.
7. Bring quickly to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.
8. Cover the pot and don't touch it until the end.
9. Cook for 15 minutes before removing the pot from the heat but keep the lid closed.
10. Let rice rest for 10 min and then remove the cover.
11. Place in a glass dish to cool and lightly fan the rice while adding the vinegar mixture.
12. Mix rice gently, careful not to break it.
13. Sushi rice is best used at body temperature.

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Beer Cheesecake

I had decided to bake a cake to bring over to my office on Monday as a token of appreciation to our team 'AH KUNG' as we fondly called him. Just in case you are picturing an old guy with the age similar to your grandpa; you were wrong. He's a funny, and capable mid-age man that took care our team for last few months; so in another word - he's our boss. It's a pleasure to have him looking after our team for the past few months; we definitely learnt a lot from him.

Since he is a drinker and love beer; this cake is definitely something I hope he'll like - beer cheesecake. I was looking thru the recipe book when I saw this recipe. Something creative and innovative to try. The result - there's a slight bitterness taste in the cake, but not really very 'beer' taste but still taste good.

Wondering how to make the biscuits base for the cake? Have a look at the photos below.

Note: you can use any type of biscuits e.g. digestive biscuits, oreo biscuits, marie biscuits and cream cracker biscuits. For this cake, I had chosen cream cracker base.

To have a no messy kitchen - prepare a zip lock bag to place the crackers

Rolling pin used to smash up the crackers

End result - Smashed cream crackers ready to be mixed with melted butter to be used as the cake base

Since this cake was meant to given out as a gift, it was suppose to be flawless but it was cracking up in the middle of the baking process. Aargh! That's what I am hoping not to happen but eventually it happened. I thought the 'cracking up' incidence will be lower since I was using the 'water bath' method while baking. Sigh, I guess there's no 100% guaranteed method.

Grrrr! Why my cake cracked? That's my first reaction when looking at the cake halfway thru the baking process..

So to cover up or shall I say 'mask up' my failure, I had made another trip to the nearby grocer to buy some strawberries. Strawberries besides being used as a good snacks for fruits, they can be used for other purposes as well. Yeah, BINGO! You got it right! I am using them as my decorative items for my cheesecake. I had glazed the cake with some clear fruit glaze first and then strawberries were placed on top of the cake. The strawberries were glazed again to make them look shiny and pretty. The end result? Look at the photos yourselves.......

Strawberries - good decorative items which can cover up the flaws

My very own - beer cheesecake topped with strawberries.. The crack were hardly noticeable anymore...

Ready to be place on the box

The outer look of the box. Hope to find nicer looking ones in the future.. This design is not really my 'cup of tea'

Ingredients

Cake base

160 g cream cracker biscuits, crushed

100g melted butter

Filling

(A)

500g cream cheese

100g cheddar cheese

(B)

150g sugar

20g cornflour

(C)

3 eggs

1 egg yolk

(D)
1/2 lemon zest, grated

1/2 orange zest, grated

(E)

50g whipping cream

100g beer

Decorative

100g strawberries

Methods

1. Grease the cake tin. Press the cream cracker biscuits on the bottom of the tin. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
2. Cream (A) till smooth. Add (B) and cream until light and fluffy.
3. Add (C) one at a time and cream till smooth. Add (D) and mix until well blended. Add (E). Cream until well combined.
4. Pour the mixture over the biscuits base. Bake in water bath at 160 degrees for approximately 60 minutes or till golden brown and centre is almost set.
5. Run a small knife around the rim of the tin to loosen the cake. Set aside to cool.
6. Cover the cake and refrigerate for 5 hours or over overnight.
7. Decorate as you desired.

Clear Fruit Glaze
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup fruit juice
2 tablespoons corn syrup/honey

Methods

1. Bring sugar and 1/2 cup juice to a boil
2. Dissolve cornstarch in the remaining juice.
3. Add to the boiling juice and cook till thick.
4. Stir in corn syrup and bring back to a boil and remove from heat.
5. Cool and drizzle over fruit.
   

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