non-bento#6 “real” rice cake

This isn’t a bento, but I really liked how it turned out and it was easy, so I’m going to post it!

Like I mentioned, my bento caught up with my blog, and I didn’t make bento for Saturday… So I was thinking about doing a dinner blog. But I got up earlier than usual for a Saturday morning and went to the city to shop for a new game (“Tatsunoko VS Capcom for Wii :D) today, so when I came home, I was pretty tired and decided to take a nap.

Not a good idea. orz

I wanted to cook salmon, but the fish market was already closed. So I got online and looked for an easy recipe for the dinner and found this!

non-bento #4:  Real Rice Cake
Created and eaten on: 3/1/2009

First I made a thin egg omelette and cut it into strips. (I think you can also use scrambled egg if you’re feeling lazy) Then I made beef soboro (ground beef cooked with soy sauce, sake, and sugar). The recipe says plain rice, but I had “Sushi Taro,” so I decided to use it and mixed it with rice. (“Sushi Taro” is a “gomoku zushi mix”, which you can get at an Asian grocery store.)

After the egg, soboro, and rice was ready, I took out a Springform 9 inch cake pan. I put egg in the pan first and spread it evenly. Then I put a thin layer of rice on top of the egg. Then I put soboro on the rice and spread it evenly. I put the rest of the rice on top of the soboro, and patted it tighter and tighter. When that was done, I flipped the pan onto a plate, took the outer part first, and removed the top part. (When you’re filling up the pan, the rice doesn’t have to fill up the pan, but you just have to make sure to pat the rice lightly so it won’t fall apart when it’s flipped.)

I decorated it with cherry tomatoes and scallions, and ta-da! It’s a cake made of rice!

I think this will be a great dish for a party. (though, you might want to pre-cut the rice cake to prevent the rice from falling apart while you cut it) It’s super easy, and all you need is rice (Japanese or Korean rice. Other rice isn’t sticky enough to hold the shape!) eggs, ground beef (or ground chicken or ground pork or tuna) and a cake pan!

Rice cake
– egg
– soboro (ground beef cooked with soy sauce, sake and sugar)
– rice mixed with Sushi Taro
– cherry tomato
– scallion

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.