Vacuum flasks designed for soup are available worldwide.

But did you know they can be used to cook simple yet tasty soups?

A soup bento expert shows us how.

Very good smell...

And a Somalian bento maker living in Japan

shares a bento that includes a fluffy Somalian flat bread and lamb stew.

We love bento!

We love bento!

(The Global Lunchbox VII-6)

Welcome to BENTO EXPO,

your guide to the wonderful delicious world of bento.

Today I've come to visit a bento maker

who specializes in making soup bento using one of these,

a vacuum flask.

But first, let's take a look at a few of the bentos

sent in from around the world.

First, a bento packed with the flavors from

the East African nation of Somalia.

Hello. I'm Suad, I'm from Somalia and I'm living in Japan.

For my bento, I will be making suqaar and canjeero.

Canjeero is a Somalian flat bread

made with a fermented flour and yeast batter.

She scoops a portion into the center of a pan

and spreads it around using the bottom of a cup.

After steaming it, it turns out fluffy on top and crisp on the bottom.

We eat canjeero for breakfast. It's very soft.

As her main dish,

Suad makes a popular Somalian stew by

browning lamb and onions with a lot of vegetables.

The key spice is cumin, which she toasts to bring out its aroma,

and then she pounds it into a paste with garlic.

Very good smell.

The paste is added to the stew along with other spices

which pair beautifully with the lamb and veggies.

It's so colorful and I bet it smells amazing!

It's spicy and it gives a great taste.

This is camel meat which has been preserved in clarified butter.

Camels are an indispensable work animal and source of food for Somalis.

Somalis love eating camel meat.

Banana!

Bananas are another important component to finish off her bento.

Let's see how they eat it.

A spoonful of camel meat is scooped onto the canjeero and...

Hot tea on it.

Wow, that's interesting! How is it?

Delicious.

The stew is also eaten with canjeero along with the banana.

It's a very great combination.

We love bento!

Next from the UK, a bento with a taste of home.

I'm Kwannie from Thailand, living in England.

My bento boxes will involve something with a Thai twist to it.

Kwannie lives in the UK with her British husband and kids.

She packs her bentos with flavors from home

to immerse her kids in their Thai heritage.

Even these quintessentially British Scotch eggs

are infused with Thai curry paste.

Today, she's making corn fritters.

They're a popular snack food in Thailand.

She's loading these up with shrimp and seasoning them with oyster sauce.

Like that.

Look at that!

My sweet corns.

These savory sweet fritters look so crispy and delicious.

Kwannie also makes a Thai omelet with loads of broccoli and carrots

that's seasoned with soy sauce.

To make it crispy, she fries the omelet in a generous amount of oil.

Let's see how it looks.

The inside is fluffy, and the combination of texture is great.

A bento packed with the flavors of Thailand.

So how does it taste?

It's yummy.

Awesome.

We love bento!

Today, I'm visiting a bento maker who specializes in making soup bento.

- Hello.
- Hi, come on in.

Her name is Ariga Kaoru.

I've brought a vacuum flask. Can't wait to get started.

Great. It'll be fun.

Come in.

Wow, you have so many vacuum flasks.

Colorful, aren't they? And they come in different sizes.

I get a kick just looking at them.

I'll show you how to prep in just ten minutes in the morning.

Ten minutes?

It'll be cooked slowly inside the flask, so it'll be ready by lunchtime.

A vacuum flask, or thermos, keeps the food inside warm.

It's perfect for transporting soup.

Smaller, single serving-size vacuum flasks are

a popular choice among bento makers in Japan.

Kaoru's soup bento recipes using these vacuum flasks

are attracting attention in South Korea and Taiwan.

So, let's get started.

OK!

Kaoru's going to start with the basics

by showing us a pot-au-feu style soup.

First things first.

Preheat the flask by filling it with boiling water.

So the temperature doesn't drop when you add the soup.

Exactly. Meanwhile, let's prep the soup.

She adds the cut vegetables and sausage into a pot of water.

And now, add a small piece of konbu.

The umami will gradually seep out and enrich the soup.

It makes a world of difference.

So I suggest cutting up pieces of konbu like this to have on hand.

That's a great idea. So you cut them into a one-time use...

Yes, to save time in the morning.

To ensure her soup doesn't spoil,

she brings all of the ingredients to a full boil.

What's next?

You just pour it into the flask.

That's it?

That's it.

The potatoes are still hard, and so is the carrot.

But they'll continue to cook in the flask, so this is just fine.

Drain the flask, turn off the heat,

and quickly pour the soup into the flask.

That's it.

I can't believe it. It only took about five minutes to make.

But the soup will continue to cook in the flask

until you open it for lunch.

So it's actually cooked for several hours.

Let's see how it looks after three hours.

It looks good, but how does it taste?

It has so much flavor from the sausage

and from the vegetables and the konbu.

Try some potato.

It's so tender and soft,

and it's absorbed all of those great flavors.

It's like magic it's turned into this delicious soup.

Now that we've learned the basics,

Kaoru is going to show us three different soups

using the same technique.

First is a simple tomato vegetable soup with ground meat.

Kaoru fries some grated garlic with olive oil

and then she adds eggplant, ground meat, okra,

water and tomato juice along with a bit of salt.

Then she brings it to a full boil to cook the meat through,

and it's ready to pack!

By lunchtime, the okra will have made the soup very creamy.

It's so good.

That sounds great.

Next she's making a milk-based soup with kabocha and chicken.

I'm now going to make a filling soup with this beautiful kabocha.

For this soup, Kaoru adds the kabocha, chicken thighs,

water, salt and vegetable oil,

and covers it with the lid to let it simmer for about four minutes.

As it boils, the oil will be mixed with the water.

It's important to make sure the chicken is cooked through.

And after four minutes...

It looks like the chicken is cooked through.

Now, add the milk and rolled barley and return to a boil.

Rolled barley won't dissolve, so it gives the soup a nice texture.

I was curious so I asked Kaoru to let me taste the soup at this point.

It tastes like warm milk.

For now.

But after three hours,

the soup will be infused with the umami from

the kabocha and chicken and it'll taste great.

Looking forward to the transformation.

Kaoru got started on her soup bento journey

making soups for her son every morning.

Ten years ago, my son was studying for his entrance exams.

I wanted him to start off the day with a hot meal.

And that's how it all started.

I've been making soup every morning for ten years now,

so that means at least 3,650 recipes.

Wow.

For her final soup, she's making one of her son's favorites.

I'm going to use this miso and butter to make a soup with salmon.

I love the flavor of savory miso with rich and creamy butter.

Kaoru adds the salmon, potatoes and shimeji mushrooms to a pot

and covers them with water.

Then she covers the pot with a lid

and simmers the ingredients for three minutes.

Looks good.

The salmon is already cooked but the potatoes are still hard.

But that's fine.

Let's dissolve the miso.

See?

The soup is loaded with chunks of salmon, so it's quite substantial.

Add the butter... and it's finished.

Now I'm going to try my hand at making a soup bento!

Add some water.

Using some of your tricks and some of my own,

I want to make a quick curry.

I love the aroma of curry when you open it up.

I'm making a Japanese-style curry using

a combination of konbu dashi and 3S sauce (Soy sauce+Sake+Sugar),

and I'm also adding a bit of potato starch to thicken it up.

Then I grate some aromatics, carrots, and onion

and mix in a little baking soda to make the base for my curry.

So baking soda is going to raise the PH of this mixture

which is going to make it caramelize much faster.

I'm just going to stir this in.

Next, I brown both sides of the chicken

before removing them from the pan.

The oil left over is a flavorful way to caramelize our pureed aromatics.

It smells delicious!

One of the tricks to making really good curry

is to caramelize the onions first,

and that can usually take up to an hour to do,

but by grating this into a paste and adding a little bit of baking soda,

we can caramelize this in about three minutes.

Let's go ahead and add our curry powder into this.

So it's like a curry roux, right?

Exactly.

To this, I add the mixture of konbu dashi

along with the chicken and some mixed vegetables.

Then, we just need to bring this to a boil

and pack it into our soup jar.

I see!

Before I seal it up, I top my curry with a dollop of sour cream.

And our curry soup bento is done.

After a few hours of slow cooking,

we took our soup bentos outdoors to try them out.

I think I'm going to go with the tomato and the summer vegetables here.

Look at that.

The meat and the okra.

The okra has gotten so tender,

and that eggplant has soaked up

all the flavors of the soup and the meat.

All the flavors have merged in the flask.

This is the kabocha and chicken soup.

Wow, it looks so creamy.

A few hours ago, this tasted like warm milk.

So let's see how it tastes now.

That kabocha has gotten so tender

and the flavor of the chicken has gone into the milk

to give it so much flavor.

And at the bottom, we have some of that barley and it adds a nice body,

so it fills you up.

Very soothing.

It makes me happy just to see you enjoy it!

This is the salmon butter-miso soup.

It's so good.

And you've got the flavor of the salmon with that butter.

Tastes like home.

So, please try my curry.

I can't wait to try it.

It looks so creamy.

It's so good! Really!

The umami from the konbu, chicken, and caramelized vegetables...

It's delicious.

But it's all thanks to your technique

that you showed me for making the soup bento.

To go with my Curry Soup Bento, I made some turmeric rice onigiri.

We love soup bento!

I hope you enjoyed learning about soup bento today.

Speaking of bentos,

send us a photo of your favorite bento to our website

and share the inspiration with

fellow bento makers from around the world.

That's all the time we have for today,

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

Bye!