bento friday: sesame beef

an experimental bento: sesame beef and soba

This week's bento feature was a bit of a departure for me.  I make a lot of veggie bento, tamagoyaki (egg) bento, with occasional supplements of chicken or sausages.  

But I'm actually kind of phobic of cooking beef. 

Really it's just because I don't have much experience with it, so I tend to drastically overcook it.  This one... wasn't really an exception.  But I'll get better eventually.  I hope.  And in the interest of reproducibility,  I'm going to start writing up general recipes to go with bento!  Yay recipes.  I'm calling this sesame beef, because of the sesame oil and seeds, but the sauce was totally just made up on the spot.  I offer precisely zero guarantee that this is in any way authentically Japanese, but it is yummy.

sesame beef with greens and soba

Boil soba noodles, drain and rinse well with cold water.  Put soba in bento box(es). 

Sauté thin-sliced beef in sesame oil, attempting not to overcook it into leather.  Set aside.  Sauté whatever greens you have (I had snow peas, pak choi, and scallions), and put on top of noodles. 

Dump into pan: garlic, soy sauce, sushi vinegar, pepper flakes, sake, a bit of brown sugar and a sprinkle of cornstarch.  Stir around and reduce a bit, then add beef back to sauce and stir to coat.  Pour beef and sauce over noodles and veg.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds.  

Tasty!