How to make thanksgiving turkey for your bento

Thanksgiving is coming soon! So, on top of my usual how-to, I decided to do a turkey kyaraben.
I’m not sure if everyone can get Japanese rice (sticky rice), so I’m going to do a sandwich version as well.

[Rice ball turkey]
– One sheet of seaweed
– rice
– two different kind of cheese
– ham
– small piece of carrot
– black sesame seed

Body:
1. Make a round rice ball, and wrap it with seaweed (1/4 of a sheet). If you don’t like plain rice ball that much, you can put a little bit of salt on your hand when you make a rice ball, or you can put some other food inside rice ball.
Keep it wrapped while you make a tail and head.

*tip: Try using hot rice. Seaweed sticks to rice a lot better when rice is hot, and also seaweed is less likely to rip with hot rice.

Tail:
2. Spread rice on plastic wrap, cover it with plastic wrap, flatten rice with a hand, and shape it the same (or close) size as the object you used to cut cheese.

3. Hold 2 sheets of seaweed underneath of #2, and cut seaweed around it.

4. Unwrap rice, and put one on top of the seaweed and then flip it.

5. Put another sheet of seaweed on top of #4.

6. Cut a slice of cheese with any round object, such as a glass, coffee mug, or of course, a cookie cutter.

7. When you cut cheese, don’t move the whole knife. Just move the tip part to cut cheese like the ribs on a hand fan.

8. Cut a slice of cheddar cheese like #6~#7. (You can use thinly sliced & microwaved yam or carrot.)

9. Layer cheese feather on top of #5. Each layer should be slightly off from each edge. Remove the excess cheese at the bottom. You won’t need to use all the cheese, but don’t eat the scraps just yet. Save it to use for its eyes and beak later.

Putting body on tail:
10. Unwrap the body, and put it on top of the tail.

Head:
11. Place the the scrap cheese on turkey, and cut turkey around cheese.

12. Using a straw, cut out pieces from the scrap cheese.

13. Cut the scrap cheddar cheese for its beak.

14. Slice a baby carrot, and cut it like the picture for its snood. (I had to google for this, but that’s the name of the red skin that hangs down from turkey’s beak)

15. Put black sesame seed for its eyes.

[Turkey turkey Sandwich]
– whole wheat bread
– turkey
– cheese
– lettuce
– tomato (I only had cherry tomato, so that’s what I used. But normal tomato will be much easier to work with)
– baby carrots

Body:
1. Cut a slice of bread with any round object such as a glass, coffee mug, and of course, a cookie cutter. Cut another slice of bread.

2. Using the same thing you used in #1, cut turkey and cheese.

*tip: Hold down whatever you’re using to cut out food, and slide back and forth on a cutting board. Food will be cut out nice and neat.

Tail:
3. Cut a slice of bread with any round object like #1. but the object needs to be bigger than the one you used for its body.

4. Using the same thing you used in #1, cut turkey and cheese.

5. On the bread, put cheese, lettuce, tomato, turkey, lettuce. (you can put them in any order you want)

6. Slice baby carrots, and placed them on the top of lettuce.

Head:
7. Take the edge of wheat bread. (left over from cutting the body or tail part)
8. Using a straw, cut out pieces from the scrap cheese.

9. Cut the scrap cheddar cheese for its beak.

10. Slice a baby carrot, and cut it like the picture for its snood.

11. Put black sesame seed for its eyes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

You can see more pictures on my flickr page.

Rice Ball Turkey

Turkey turkey sandwich

You can also check out more “how-to’s” on my blog and my flickr.