This little piggie went to market, this little piggie stayed home. This little piggie…where’s the third one you ask? Well, the third little piggie is present as pork. *facepalm*

Yes, yes, I know the rhyme’s pretty screwed up for this particular bento but my brain is fried right now so that’ll have to work as an intro. This lunch is a quick attempt at cutesy bento, and I think it works. I find it really cute, at the very least.

This meal has two pig onigiri, made from rice mixed with sakura denbu (hence the pink color) and garnished with cheese snouts, carrot ears and black sesame seed eyes. As sides, I sautéed some asparagus spears and mushrooms in butter then dusted liberally with freshly cracked black pepper.

Lastly, I also prepared some shogayaki, a Japanese pork dish that incorporates lots of ginger for a very tender, flavorful pork cutlet. It’s traditionally served with some lettuce leaves and tomato wedges but I had to skip the tomato part since we were out.

Shogayaki v. 22 December 2008

1-2 pork cutlets
1 tsp grated ginger, juice included
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp sake
Oil for frying

1. Mix together ginger, soy sauce and sake.
2. Marinade pork for 5 minutes.
3. Heat some oil then add the pork cutlets.
4. Pour leftover marinade, turning cutlet to cook each side evenly.
5. Cook until done.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 3:33 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.