Once again, the inspiration for this bento came from various recipes in the "Just Bento" cookbook. Apart from the addition of kamaboko, this is a vegetarian bento.
The first thing to do for these recipes, is to toast up a load of sesame seeds, four tablespoons if you're cooking for two people. Also hard-boil a couple of eggs, which takes about 10 minutes on a lowish heat, so that they can cool down in time for bento-packing. Serve them with a chopped, fresh tomato.
Chilled Seaweed Soba
First cook the soba noodles, use the packet instructions, but that's basically just boiling them for a few minutes and then running them under a cold tap to stop them overcooking.
At the same time as you do this, soak some dried wakame seaweed in cold water until it rehydrates and is ready to use.
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Finally, combine the soba and seaweed with a finely sliced spring onion, toasted sesame seeds and a generous sprinkling of furikake or simple salt and pepper. Ideally these would go with a dipping sauce made from warmed mirin, soy sauce and sugar mixed with dashi, but they were still tasty without.
Sesame Chard Greens
Separate the green leaves from the stems of a packet of chard and reserve the stems for the next dish. Pop the sliced leaves into a pan with a little water and cook until they look just like cooked spinach.
Let them cool down and then mix in a bowl with some salt, chilli powder (I love Korean chilli powder), a teaspoon of sesame oil and a load of toasted sesame seeds. This is much more than the sum of its parts, it's really really tasty.
Steamed Rainbow Chard Stems
Simply steam the stems in a microwave for a few minutes with a little butter and water.
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