We ate out at a Chinese restaurant last night and had a surfeit of daing (salted dried fish) fried rice. Fortunately, it was so yummy I didn’t mind packing it for bento today. In fact, neither did my mom.

Left tier:
- Hakao (Shrimp Dumplings). They’re the same shrimp dumplings from this post. I didn’t say much about it at that time since it was just so and so. I tried heating it using my microwave steamer instead of my conventional steamer and wonders of wonders…it turned out excellent! Sure, it’s not as shrimpy as the expensive Hakao from Emperor Court (Renaissance Hotel’s Chinese Resto—sooo good!), but it’s fantastic quality for the price. I bought a 1kg bag for roughly 200 bucks at S & R Price. I’d love to take a photo to help other pinoy bento bloggers but the almost spent bag looks so forlorn. I promise to do so on when I buy a new bag.- Salmon Balls. A quick fix recipe I learned from my grandma, this is a great way to prepare canned salmon. The nice thing about this is that it doesn’t get soggy even when packed half a day in a bento.

- Corn & Carrots. Part of my freezer stand-bys.

Right tier:
- Daing Fried Rice with an interlocking carrot flower garnish. Daing is a process where fish is split open, cleaned and gutted, salted, then dried under the sun. A lot of fish can be prepared as daing, from small fish to large ones. They’re all called Daing though usually, the name of the fish specie is tagged along, e.g. Daing na Labahita (Salted Dried Surgeonfish).

This particular Fried Rice was from Man Yann, a Chinese restaurant in Glorietta. It’s like your usual Yang Chow Fried Rice, only, instead of shrimps, they added flaked daing. My mom commented that with rice like this, you don’t need a viand since it’s a meal in itself. I agree with her since the daing is strongly flavored so just a tiny bit goes a long, long way. All the other stuff we ordered that night was pretty blah, disappointing even. The Daing Fried Rice was my saving grace; it’s something I’d want to eat again and again and again.

Sauce box:
- UFC Sweet Chili Sauce. For as long as I can remember, we’ve been buying this particular chili sauce to go with the salmon balls. Good combination. If you can’t find something similar, I suggest making sweet and sour sauce.

Further proof that the fried rice was good and the salmon balls are great even when stuffed in a bento:

My mom let me make her one!

My mom’s the type who likes her meals hot. However, she doesn’t have a microwave at work, so no go for bentoing, unless I buy her a thermal lunch set. However, this time, she let me make her one, minus the hakao though. Her box is kinda overstuffed (understatement!) with the salmon balls but I figured she could share.

SALMON BALLS v. 14 April 2007
1 418g can pink salmon
1 onion, chopped
1-2 eggs
oil for panfrying

1. Drain the salmon’s liquid, then throw the flesh in a mixing bowl. If you don’t like eating the bones, now’s the time to remove them. Honestly though, you won’t even taste it after we’re done.
2. Throw in the onion and the eggs. 1 egg makes an easier to mold patty. 2 eggs makes it more challenging to mold since it’s a bit wetter, but it makes a nicer, thicker crust.
3. Mold into 2-inch patties. 1-inch balls work if you like the crusty part. Big burger-sized patties also work if you’d like to turn it into a sandwich.
4. Panfry until golden brown. Here’s the trick. To keep it from breaking apart, let it fry thorougly until even the edges are golden brown. Let it fry for a few minutes for a thicker crust, just don’t let it burn. When it’s crusty and you can pry it easily from the pan (a signal that it’s cooked, it sticking to the pan means it’s still undone) turn it over to cook the other side. Fry until both sides are done.
5. Serve with sweet chili sauce or sweet and sour sauce.

Note: When I was small, I remember my grandma would also make this using canned Salmon-style Mackerel. It’s a cheaper and easier to find alternative, although I haven’t tried using it yet, and my childhood memories are hazy.

Originally posted in:
http://kitchencow.livejournal.com/34490.html
http://community.livejournal.com/bentolunch/903946.html

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 6:26 pm and is filed under bento, recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.