After seeing me taking photos and trying all sorts of things in the kitchen, my wife wondered aloud why I never wrote any posts about the bento lunches she makes for our daughter.  In our house, we tend to cook separately.  She doesn’t want me in there.  She loves it and excels at it, and I just don’t have the experience to write about it.  The next time she asked me about the bento post, I said “would you like to write one?”  She finally agreed, so here is her first guest post.  She’d love any questions or comments you have, so please share them.  Oh, and the pictures in this post are really useful, so I encourage you to click to get the bigger version to see all the little details that go into them.

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My 6 year old daughter is in love with all things Japanese. Since the after school Japan club was discontinued, she has begged to learn about Japanese language and culture from a local teacher. She has Japanese every Sunday, and she learns about language, culture, customs, crafts. Her teacher is impressed at her ability to concentrate for so long, and my daughter comes away just wanting to learn more. Her first, and perhaps favorite exposure to the world of Japan has been through its food. Whether it’s sushi, noodles, okonomiyaki, or tonkatsu, she loves the umami-rich lavors of Asia.

Sometimes we go out to restaurants to have Japanese or other Asian food (her current favorite is a small Korean restaurant, Goodfella). These days, we’re more often staying at home, but this doesn’t mean we have to leave behind her favorite cuisine!

She has been working on her skills with chopsticks lately, and she has gotten much better. I made a variety of sushi last weekend, and we all had fun picking our favorites and trying new things. Making sushi at home isn’t hard, necessarily, but it does take practice. I mangle some scraps of nori and sushi rice, but the sushi tastes good, and in the end it’s all about the flavors.

We went with some simple combinations, based on what we had around the house. With our family’s love of Japanese food, we almost always have some of the basic staples of Japanese cuisine. We’re always excited to find new ways to use the same ingredients.

First is a classic stripped-down California roll. It has our favorite bits, the fake crab and creamy avocado.
Next, we have eel. This eel is actually from a can of roasted eel (black pepper flavor). The pepper flavor was very strong, but otherwise it was surprisingly good. Not as soft and sweet as the unagi you’d get at your favorite sushi bar, but good on its own merits. Next to it are some seasoned corn gunkanmaki (corn, kewpie mayo, soy sauce).

We eat eggs all the time, and sushi night is no different. I made some tamago (seasoned scrambled eggs) wrapped with nori strips.

We had some frozen prepared shrimp that we’ve been looking to use. I’ve made them from scratch before, but it’s certainly easier to buy it pre-made. The package we got at the local Asian market had probably 3 dozen prepared shrimp for around $7. Pack some rice, add a dab of wasabi, place the shrimp, and there you have a delicious piece of ebi.