Bento #26

I've been wanting to make Dora Yaki again after all the pancakes I've been making for my girls. Usually, red bean paste is sandwiched between two Dora Yaki pancakes but these days you can see them being sold with peanut butter or jam. I like mine the traditional style - with red bean paste.

I planned this morning's menu very well because I only have half an hour to finish the Bento and the Dora Yaki takes about 15 minutes to 'rise'.

I got most of the ingredients ready last night for the bento and all I had to do is to quickly fry the rice with the pre-cut fillets of roasted duck meat and eggs. That I did in one kuali while boiling a small pot of water over another stove to blanch some of the vegetables. At the other end of my kitchen, I had my old faithful Kenwood humming away beating the batter for the Dora Yaki.

After some 'magical moves', I managed to get everything done on time. Ahhhh.....all packed and gone, I had to continue frying the balance Dora Yaki - this time in big pieces so that the batter will finish faster! The tiny ones were just for the Bento.

As usual, I'd sneak vegetables into their bento (like it or not) and here you can see I've skewered kyuri (partially skinned and rolled in salt and then washed to give it it's crunchiness), fish cake, baby corn and baby carrots.

I punched three stars and scattered on top of the very 'brown looking' fried roasted duck rice. Placed two pieces of mini Dora Yaki with red bean paste, three-quarters of an orange and some Indonesian layer cake a neighbor give us.

Quite happy with today's bento even though I was literally running helter-skelter trying to get it ready. *smile* *smile* *smile*