Lunchbox Recipe #12: Home-Made Sweet Bread Roll With Luncheon Meat

It’s another luncheon meat lunchbox recipe again!  Haha.  Remember I told you earlier how I just love luncheon meat?

Well, for these bread rolls, you probably have to make them the day before as it will take a few hours to complete.  But it is a very fun activity that you can involve your kids as well.  Allow them to design the bread rolls the way they like them to be and I sure they will look forward having their own masterpiece in their lunch box the next day!

Even me, the “old” kid, had so much fun.  My mum and I moulded the dough into different shapes just to see how it would turn out after baking.  I even created one “uniquely shaped” bread roll (see it below) specially for Hubby.

Ingredients (for sweet bread dough):

Part A

• 480 g bread flour
• 120 g plain flour
• 110 g sugar
• 10 g fine salt
• 20 g milk powder (can be substituted with bread flour)
• 4 teaspoons instant yeast

Part B

• 1 egg
• 300 ml cold water

Part C

• 60 g butter

Ingredients (filling for sweet bread roll)

• About 400 g of luncheon meat, cut into smaller pieces

Instructions:

Step 1:  Mix Part A ingredients in a mixing bowl till they are well blended.

Step 2:  Add Part B ingredients and knead to form a dough.

Step 3:  Add Part C butter and continue to knead until the dough looks smooth and elastic.  Cover dough with a clear film.  Let it prove for 50-60 minutes or until it doubles its size.

To check if the dough is ready, test by pressing a finger on it lightly.  If the dough does not sink but shows a clear finger print mark, you can proceed to the next stage of separating them into individual portions.

Step 4:  Divide the dough into 60 g portions.  Shape them into balls and leave them to rest for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, you can prepare the luncheon meat filling.

Step 5:  Now the fun begins!  You can make the bread roll according to your liking.  The easiest way is to wrap the luncheon meat in the dough completely, or you can elongate the dough and coil them around the luncheon meat.

See what I did for the first tray?  I made a round one, an oval one, a “pillow” shaped one, and one that resembled a croissant.

Step 6:  Brush the surface of each bread roll with a little egg wash (egg yolk+water) and bake at 190 deg Celcius for 12 minutes.

Does my first tray of sweet bread rolls with luncheon meat look good?

I can’t describe to you in the picture, but the smell of freshly baked bread is just heavenly!

Besides luncheon meat, you can also vary the fillings for the bread roll.  Think of tuna?  Ham?  Raisins?  It’s up to your family’s preference!

For lunch box meals, just pack these sweet bread rolls in a normal bento box with a salad or some fruits at the side.  It’s a lighter meal, and an interesting alternative to noodles or rice.

Well, we made about 17 sweet bread rolls in total for this batch.  And this is the “masterpiece” I mentioned above that I gave to Hubby.  Can you make out what it resembles?  (Clue:  We usually call it a pile of …)

We both had a good laugh and he really ate it for breakfast next morning.  LOL.

Hope you like this recipe and have fun making your own home-made bread roll!

This is our self-created home-made stir-fried udon recipe.

We introduced black pepper to this recipe as it adds a new taste to the dish.  If you have kids who cannot take the spiciness, just cut down on the pepper part.  With the rest of the seasoning, it is still delicious!

Ingredients (Serves 3 adults):

• 2 packets of (200 g) udon
• 4 imitation crab sticks, cut half and peeled into thin strips
• 2 small fish cake, cut into thin strips (optional, if it is not available)
• 1 small bok choy, washed and cut into smaller pieces
• 3 dried or fresh shitake mushroom, trimmed of caps and cut into strips
• 1 packet (100 g) enoki mushrooms, trimmed of ends, cut into half and peeled into individual strips
• 1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Water, about half cup

Seasoning:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoon black pepper (adjust according to your preference)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Boil some water in a stockpot.  Cook the udon noodles.  Drain and set aside.

Step 2:  Heat up a wok or pan with olive oil.  Add minced garlic when oil is hot.

Step 3:  When garlic starts to brown, add in the ingredients (imitation crab stick, fish cake, mushrooms and bok choy) and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes.  Add half a cup of water and allow the ingredients to simmer for another minute.

If you notice, this whole wok are just the cooked ingredients.  See the mushroom and red imitation crab stick strips?  We like our udon with lots of ingredients!

Step 4:  Add the udon noodles into the cooked ingredients.  Blend well.

Step 5:  Add the list of seasoning next, one by one.  Stir-fry the udon noodles till all the ingredients are mixed evenly.

Finally, our completed wok of stir-fried black pepper udon.  Don’t you think the udon look a little like squid tentacles?  LOL.

Time to eat!

I set a portion aside for Hubby’s lunchbox too.  For this type of meal, I usually use a microwave-safe bento box so that Hubby can heat it up again during lunch.

This udon recipe is really easy to cook and makes a great lunchbox idea for kids and adults.  It is convenient to pack too as it is an all-in-one dish like fried rice.

By the way, don’t you think all-in-one meal ideas are like a godsend on the days we feel really lazy or under the weather?  I am often guilty of this, so I bet I will be sharing more all-in-one meals to come.  Haha.

Happy 2009 my dear friends!  Have you enjoyed the year end holidays?

Well, I realized I have been MIA-ed (missing in action, LOL) for a couple of days, sorry!

For the last three days, we were often not at home, thus I could not find the time to write, although I have a few recipes waiting to be shared on this blog.

I have also been thinking lately about my directions for this blog in 2009.  Would you like to hear them?  Well, I hope this blog will continue to grow in content.  I hope this blog can become a good source of reference to my readers who are on the lookout for more lunchbox recipe ideas to cook for their loved ones.  I would also like to achieve my target of writing a post every alternate day.  I also hope that this blog can reach an Alexa rank below one million and probably get some page rank love from Google by summer time.  Hmm.  Do you think it is possible?

Well, the most recent milestone I have taken for this blog is to join Foodbuzz.  See that badge on the top right corner of this blog?  This is in recognition that easylunchboxrecipes.com has been accepted as a Foodbuzz featured publisher!  I have heard great things about Foodbuzz from other foodie bloggers and I am excited at the thought of making more foodie friends there.  Connecting with others of the same interest can also widen my pool of ideas and provide me with more inspiration in the dishes I continue to whip up for this blog.

The second milestone is the opening of my Lunch Box Store.  See the “Lunch Box Store” tab at the very top of the blog, beside the “Home” and “About” tab?  This is where I showcase the most popular lunch box merchandise, be it bento boxes, lunch jars, thermos jars, lunch bags and everything else related to lunch boxes.

Personally, I favour Japanese brands for their lunch boxes, so if you are looking for a good thermos food jar, I do highly recommend the Zojirushi Stainless Steel ones.  These are really worth every cent that you pay.

Alright, I will be back with the next recipe “Stir-Fried Black Pepper Udon Noodles” very soon.  This recipe got a big thumbs up from everyone who tried it, so do stay with me if you are keen to cook some udon!

We make this cod fish dish quite often at home.  You know why?

It is what comes to my mum’s mind when she is feeling really lazy.  LOL.

There are times when she does not feel like using a wok at all, so she makes very simple dishes with just the microwave.

The recipe I am sharing below is thus based on microwave cooking.  If you have a microwave, all you need is to cook it with the “Steam Fish” function.  If you don’t, you can also steam the fish the normal way for about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.  The results should be the same, although the great thing about microwave cooking is I do not need to time how long it takes for the fish to cook.  My trusty Panasonic microwave never fail to cook it to perfection and always keeps it moist and juicy.

So how lazy can you get with this dish?  Well, all you need is to get the sauce ready and you are good to go!  Sounds easy?

This sauce recipe was created by my mum, after much trial and error.  Feel free to adjust the proportions according to your cod fish steak.  The recipe below is enough for a total of 500 g of cod fish steak, which can serve 4 to 5 adults.

Ingredients for cod fish:

• 500 g of cod fish steak (could be made up of a few pieces)
• A small piece of ginger, peeled and cut into fine strips
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Ingredients for Asian sauce:

• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce (vegetarian oyster sauce is fine too)
• 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon hua tiao chiew (chinese cooking wine)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  If you can’t get fresh cod fish, frozen ones will do as well.  Remember to thaw and wash them before cooking.

Step 2:  Place the ginger strips in a microwave-safe cooking bowl, and drizzle olive oil on them.  Make sure they coat evenly.

Step 3:  Without covering the bowl, microwave at “High” setting for two minutes.  The ginger strips should turn golden brown.  Remove the ginger strips from the bowl and set them aside.

Step 4:  Blend all the ingredients for the Asian sauce in a separate mixing bowl.

Step 5:  Before cooking the fish, sprinkle some ginger strips in the cooking bowl.  Place one of the cod steak on the cooking bowl.  With a small spoon, coat the surface of the cod steak with some Asian sauce.  Flip the cod steak over and coat the other side.  Sprinkle some ginger strips on top.  Tip:  Putting ginger in this dish removes any fishy smells.

Step 6:  Cover the cooking bowl and microwave the cod fish with the default “Steam Fish” setting.

Step 7:  When the microwave beeps, don’t take the fish out immediately.  Leave it to stand for another 5 minutes in the microwave.  Remember not to open the door at all.

Step 8:  After 5 minutes, take it out and serve while hot.  Repeat Step 5 to Step 9 for the next cod steak.

This cod fish in Asian sauce is best eaten with white rice.  There is a buttery taste to the fish that I like and I love to have the gravy on my rice.  Yum…

I also set aside a cod steak for Hubby’s thermos lunch box.  He gets one smaller cod steak all to himself.

Cod fish is very good for kids and adults alike as it is a good source of protein and is high in omega-3 fatty acids.  Although it may be more expensive than most types of fish, I highly recommend cod fish for the health benefits.

If you have always wondered how to cook cod fish in another way, perhaps you can try the recipe above.  It’s really easy to prepare as you can see and is a healthy dish you can whip up in 15 minutes, even if you do not have a stove!

I absolutely love Japanese food and always have monthly cravings for it.  Haha.

But always going to the restaurants to get my fix is not going to be good for our pockets in the long run, so I am learning how to prepare them from my home.

For example, this meal below which serves four would cost us about US$40 – US$50 at a mid-range restaurant, but when we cook it ourselves, we can probably save two-thirds of what we would have spent.

For convenience, I have used pre-mix tempura flour that you can also get easily at supermarkets.  Other ingredients like furukake (Japanese rice seasoning) and bottled tempura sauce can also be bought readily.

Ingredients (Serves 4 adults):

• Cooking oil (for deep-frying of tempura)
• 4 cups of cooked Japanese short-grained rice
• 4 large shitake mushrooms, trimmed of caps and cut into halves
• 2-3 ladies’ fingers (okra), tail trimmed and cut slanted
• 1 small carrot, peeled and sliced
• 15-20 tiger prawns, de-shelled and de-veined
• 100 g tempura flour pre-mix
• Cold water (1 cup should be more than enough)
• 8 tablespoons tempura sauce
• 4 tablespoons furukake seasoning

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1:  Place the tempura flour pre-mix in a mixing bowl.  Add cold water (it must be cold!) a little at a time, and mix batter lightly till a moderately thin consistency is achieved.

Step 2:  Heat up enough cooking oil for deep-frying in a saucepan or wok.

Step 3:  Pat dry the prawns and vegetables with a kitchen paper towel before frying.

Step 4:  Test whether the oil is hot enough by dripping a drop of tempura batter.  If the batter comes up to the surface immediately, the oil is ready for frying.

Step 5:  Dip the vegetables, one by one in the batter and put them gently in the hot oil.  It is best to use a pair of long chopsticks or tongs to flip them to protect yourself from oil splatters.  The tempura should float on the surface when frying, coated with a layer of batter.  If the batter does not stick well, add a bit more tempura flour to make the batter thicker.  After the vegetables are done, continue with the prawns.

Step 6:  When the coated layer turns golden brown, remove the tempura and place them on a kitchen paper towel or rack to absorb excess oil.  This picture below shows part of what I have made.  How does it look?

Step 7:  To make tempura don, scoop a cup of pre-cooked Japanese steamed rice into a bowl.  Drizzle two tablespoons of tempura sauce on the rice.  Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of furukake seasoning in the centre.  Place the tempura on the bowl and serve while the tempura is hot and crispy.  Repeat for another bowl.

I kept a lunch box portion for Hubby, where I separated the rice and the tempura into two boxes. I also added a coleslaw side created from the left-over wasabi mayonnaise I made the day before.  Wasabi flavoured coleslaw taste awesome by the way!

The challenge about this lunch box is the tempura will go soft if it is not eaten hot.  But as long as you or the person you make the lunchbox for don’t mind, making this tempura rice lunchbox is a nice change to the menu.  And it is not too difficult at all.

I am glad I tried it!  How about you?