New Year Horse Bento

Happy New Year!!!!!!
We celebrated by eating sashimi, sushi and some of Japanese traditional New Year food.

Shrimp dish is one of the must-have items for Japanese New Year's food.

It symbolizes a wish for a long-life. To live until back bend like shrimp's. 

I made Golden Shrimp this time.

Have you seen a pair of golden fish on the roof edge of a Japanese castle?

Those are imaginary animals and considered to blow out water.

Japanese castles were made with woods, so they put the fish with a wish for an avoidance of fire.

Anyways, that is kinda good-luck thing, so this shrimp dish is made to look like those.

Golden Shrimp (Recipe in Japanese)

8 shrimps (raw, tail on, deveined )

2tbs Mayonnaise

1 Egg yolk

2in Green onions, chopped

1. Make a slit along the shrimp's belly to open. Lay on a toaster pan.

2. Mix mayonnaise, egg yolk and green onions and put on each shrimp belly.

3. Cook in a toaster about 3~4 mins.

Made bento with leftover food.....and a sausage horse! This year is the Year of the Horse:)

To make a horse, you need 2 mini sausages.
Cut one in half vertically and cut off V shapes from the ends as shown below. (hands and legs)
Cut the other sausage to make a head as shown.
Create ears and a tail with remnants of the sausage.

I made hair by mixing bonito flakes and a couple of drops of soy sauce.
Connect the parts together with fried pasta.
Create the face parts with a sliced cheese and a piece of nori seaweed.