Season 7-2 Taimeshi Bento & Oyaki Bento

Maki makes a bento with oyaki, Nagano Prefecture's beloved dumplings. And Marc makes Ehime Prefecture's famous Taimeshi: sea bream with rice. From Singapore, a bento influencer!

Transcript

00:02

Today, Maki makes a Nagano specialty,

00:06

"oyaki" dumplings.

00:08

And Marc makes an Ehime specialty,

00:11

"taimeshi," sea bream with rice.

00:16

And from Canada,

00:17

a nine-year-old boy who loves Japan and bentos

00:21

makes onigiri for the very first time.

00:25

We love bento!

00:28

We love bento!

00:35

(The Global Lunchbox 7-2)

00:39

Welcome to BENTO EXPO,

00:40

your guide to the wonderful, delicious world of bento.

00:44

I'm Marc Matsumoto.

00:45

And I'm Maki Ogawa.

00:47

Thank you for joining BENTO EXPO.

00:49

We love seeing the delicious-looking bentos

00:52

sent in from around the world through our website!

00:54

They are so inspiring, too!

00:57

Yeah, they are, aren't they?

00:59

So let's start by taking a look at how a few of them were made!

01:02

OK!

01:04

Marsita grows tulips in her garden

01:06

and used them as inspiration for her bento.

01:10

I'm from Malaysia and I'm living in Japan.

01:12

Today, I will cook a Malaysian dish for a bento.

01:17

The secret to the colorful rice is butterfly pea flowers.

01:21

It's a traditional Malaysian dish made by soaking the flowers in water,

01:25

and using the liquid, as well as the chopped flowers, to cook the rice.

01:30

You can enjoy the taste of the flowers.

01:34

Look at that stunning color!

01:37

Then, Marsita packs the rice into a mold and...

01:41

And this is my blue tulips.

01:44

Beautiful!

01:47

To go with the rice, Marsita adds boiled mackerel,

01:50

fragrant lemongrass and shallots to a food processor.

01:54

Then she fries the mixture with coconut

01:58

and black pepper.

02:01

You can feel it like creamy and a bit spicy.

02:05

I bet this goes great with rice.

02:10

Marsita also makes a spicy shrimp salad with her homemade chili paste,

02:14

and some fried chicken seasoned with turmeric.

02:18

She surrounds her flowers with the coconut-mackerel flakes

02:21

and her colorful Tulip Garden Bento is done!

02:27

To unveil her bento, she holds a bento party with her son and some friends.

02:34

OK?

02:35

- Yummy!
- OK, good.

02:38

We love bento!

02:44

Next, nine-year-old George makes onigiri for the first time.

02:50

Hi, my name is George.

02:52

And I'm George's mom, Kate.

02:54

I love bento and I got interested in bento from watching BENTO EXPO.

03:00

George's interest in Japanese culture sprouted from his love of anime.

03:06

This is the very first bento he made, using chicken fingers.

03:10

Today, he's going to give onigiri a shot, so let's see how he does it.

03:15

Then we start molding those into nice, perfect balls.

03:20

That's the way I was first presented them from my anime.

03:25

I feel proud of my creation.

03:27

Great job, George!

03:30

Onigiri and salmon are a classic bento combination

03:33

and that smoked salmon looks delicious.

03:36

All right!

03:37

George also makes cupcakes for his bento.

03:40

It's one of his favorite desserts.

03:46

Put that in.

03:48

Then he coats the cupcakes with chocolate and shredded coconut.

03:54

Hmm, they look good!

03:57

- Excellent work.
- Yeah.

04:00

I like bento because it is delicious, and everything has its own place.

04:05

Wow, it's so colorful and those onigiri look perfect!

04:09

Umm...

04:12

Delicious!

04:14

We love bento!

04:19

It's time to get started on our bentos!

04:20

OK!

04:22

Today, both Maki and I are taking inspiration

04:24

from regional Japanese dishes for our bentos.

04:27

So Maki, what are you going to make for us today?

04:29

I'm going to make oyaki,

04:31

a very popular Japanese dumpling from Nagano Prefecture.

04:35

Oh, I love oyaki!

04:39

Traditional oyaki are made with

04:41

dough wrapped around a vegetable or sweet filling

04:44

and they're cooked over embers.

04:47

These days, they're packed with almost anything

04:49

and Maki's going to show you an easy way to make them from scratch.

04:54

They're fun to make and easy to eat with your hands.

04:59

OK, let's make the oyaki dough using a food processor.

05:03

Add flour, oil, baking powder, salt,

05:07

brown sugar, and mashed potato.

05:10

Mashed potato keeps the dough soft.

05:13

Maki adds some warm water,

05:15

and then she runs the food processor for 30 to 40 seconds

05:18

until the dough comes together.

05:20

And look!

05:22

That dough looks great!

05:25

She covers and lets the dough rest for about 30 minutes

05:28

and moves on to make the filling.

05:30

She combines ground pork with chopped and salted cabbage,

05:34

scallions, soy sauce, salt and pepper,

05:37

and then she mixes it together with her hand before dividing it into balls.

05:41

Flatten the meatball and wrap it around the boiled quail's egg.

05:48

A hearty filling.

05:51

Now, let's check the dough.

05:55

The dough is really stretchy!

05:59

It's time to wrap the oyaki.

06:02

She flattens out a piece of dough using flour to keep it from sticking,

06:06

puts the filling in the center, and stretches the dough

06:09

over the meat to seal it shut.

06:11

Trim off the excess dough

06:13

and press the oyaki into a hot pan, seam side down.

06:17

Oyaki is derived from a word that means "to grill or brown."

06:20

So make sure to brown the surface.

06:24

Nice color!

06:26

Once both sides are lightly browned,

06:28

Maki adds hot water to steam the buns for a few minutes

06:32

and get the filling cooked through.

06:35

Let's open!

06:38

Umm, looks so fluffy.

06:41

My oyaki is done.

06:47

Besides the ones with meat and egg,

06:50

Maki also made some with mashed "kabocha" filling.

06:54

"Itadakimasu."

06:59

The dough is so soft and chewy.

07:02

Its mildly sweet flavor goes well with the meaty filling.

07:09

It can be used to wrap all kinds of fillings.

07:16

Maki used some extra dough to make a bear-shaped oyaki

07:19

and decorated it with cheese and nori for kids.

07:22

There are so many possibilities here and I bet they're fun to make!

07:27

So Marc, what kind of local dish are you going to make today?

07:31

I'm going to be making an umami-packed rice dish

07:34

from Ehime Prefecture, called taimeshi.

07:36

It must be good!

07:40

Taimeshi, or sea bream rice, is packed with umami

07:43

and it's traditionally made with a whole fish cooked in a clay pot.

07:48

To simplify the process,

07:49

I'm going to show you a way to prepare it using sea bream filets

07:53

and I have a few tips for getting the most flavor out of them.

08:02

You'll need some skin-on sea bream filets that have been scaled and deboned,

08:06

and you want to set them on a few layers of paper towels.

08:10

The first thing we're going to do is salt the fish.

08:13

You want to give it a pretty generous sprinkle of salt on both sides.

08:17

Now what this is going to do is season it,

08:20

but it's also going to draw out excess moisture

08:22

and it's going to pull out any fishy smells along with it into the paper towels.

08:27

Now, we're just going to let this rest for about 15 minutes.

08:32

While we wait for that,

08:33

add the washed rice, sake, water and "konbu"

08:37

to the bowl of a rice cooker

08:38

and soak it for about 30 minutes.

08:41

Konbu, or kelp, adds tons of umami to the rice.

08:45

Once the fish has released some water,

08:47

I'm going to pat it dry and broil it in a toaster oven.

08:50

Get it in here.

08:52

The key is to brown the surface of the fish.

08:56

This is going to give our rice another layer of umami.

09:00

The browned skin is also going to add a marvelous layer of flavor.

09:08

Now, I'm going to add half the fish on top of the rice

09:12

and we're going to save the other one for when the rice is done.

09:15

Close the lid.

09:18

Let the rice cooker do its thing.

09:21

Once the rice is cooked, quickly add the other piece of fish,

09:24

and let it steam for ten minutes.

09:29

Oh! It looks so good and it smells amazing.

09:34

Go ahead and just break up the fish into small pieces

09:37

and we're going to stir that into the rice.

09:41

So the reason why we added the fish in two different additions

09:44

is we want to get that flavor of the fish into the rice,

09:48

but we also want to have that tender, soft fish in there.

09:52

And our taimeshi is done.

09:57

Itadakimasu.

09:59

Smells so good.

10:04

It's nice and toasty, because we grilled that fish first,

10:07

and we've got layers upon layers of umami from the fish and from the konbu,

10:13

and because we added the fish in two different additions,

10:15

we've got the flavor and the umami from the fish in the rice,

10:19

and we also have these beautiful pieces of moist fish on top.

10:25

I packed my taimeshi with "tamagoyaki" and simmered vegetables

10:29

and then topped the rice with "kinome,"

10:31

the fragrant leaves of the "sansho" pepper plant.

10:34

Using the simple tips I showed you today,

10:37

you can easily make this authentic taimeshi at home.

10:43

Today both Maki and I made bentos inspired by regional dishes

10:46

from two areas of Japan, so we hope you'll...

10:49

Give them a try!

10:54

Bento Topics.

10:56

Today, from one of Asia's most diverse countries, Singapore.

11:01

In 2020, Singapore's hawker culture

11:03

was listed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

11:08

Hawker centers are food courts that serve a variety of cuisine,

11:12

including Chinese, Indian, and Malay.

11:16

They exemplify Singapore's diverse culture

11:19

and are essential to everyday life.

11:25

Since child, everybody, most of us go to the hawker center,

11:29

even for lunch and dinner.

11:31

Hawker centers first became popular in the 1960s.

11:35

Today, there are over 100 such centers throughout the country.

11:42

This stall, which specializes in rice bowls,

11:44

was recognized this year for its contribution to hawker culture.

11:50

Salmon drizzled with "mentaiko" sauce is seared

11:53

and placed on a bed of butterfly pea rice, evocative of a blue lagoon.

11:58

This colorful and delicious rice bowl draws large crowds.

12:04

I think that it's good that we have traditional and modern food in hawker centers.

12:08

I hope that we can promote the hawker culture to everyone around the world.

12:13

Singapore is the home of a bento maker

12:15

helping to promote bento culture.

12:19

Hello, I am Shirley. Welcome!

12:22

Shirley Wong is a bento artist

12:25

who has over 300,000 social media followers.

12:29

Her healthy sushi rolls and cute "kyaraben" made with everyday ingredients

12:34

have captured the hearts of bento fans worldwide.

12:41

She has a kitchen studio in her home

12:43

and a collection of over 1,000 bento-related products.

12:50

So I have an idea in my head, maybe what box matches the bento,

12:55

or what punches or what cutters I need to use

12:58

so that I can pick out the design.

13:02

Recently, she's started to focus on using imperfect produce.

13:08

Working with imperfect product is to reduce food waste.

13:12

It's a creative challenge. I'm excited.

13:16

Today, she's going to use Singaporean mango

13:19

in her chicken stir-fry.

13:22

She stir-fries the chicken with carrots and broccoli,

13:25

then adds soy sauce and other seasonings,

13:28

and a big serving of mango!

13:34

Umm, smells really nice!

13:36

With so much mango, it's bound to be refreshing.

13:40

Some brown rice.

13:43

She's going to top the healthy brown rice and tangy mango chicken

13:47

with eggs fried sunny side up.

13:51

She cooks the yolks side by side.

13:53

What's she planning?

13:56

Remember to cook the egg thoroughly.

14:01

She adds bits of cheese and nori.

14:04

And...

14:06

it's a kitty cat! A simple yet creative idea.

14:10

This is my mango chicken with imperfect vegetables kitty cat bento!

14:15

Great job, Shirley!

14:17

Does it taste as good as it looks?

14:20

Really nice!

14:25

I love bento!

14:29

Maki and I love seeing your bento submissions through the BENTO EXPO website.

14:34

So head over and post photos of your favorite flower-themed bentos,

14:38

like this one from Malaysia

14:40

or this one from the US.

14:42

It's a great place to share your ideas and get new bento inspiration.

14:47

Well, that's all the time we have for today,

14:50

but we hope you'll join us again here soon on BENTO EXPO.

14:53

See you soon.

14:55

Bye!