I wasn’t planning to pack a bento lunch last Friday, but just before I went to bed I found Jac in the kitchen cooking chicken drumsticks. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Cooking chicken for your bento,” she said. Isn’t she sweet? She flavoured the drumsticks in smokey barbecue sauce.
And so on Friday morning, I packed this for lunch: two barbecue chicken drumsticks, which I placed on a bed of finely shredded raw cabbage (we were out of salad greens, and I like eating raw cabbage when it’s sliced finely) with carrot sticks, a sliced mushroom, the last of the baby roma tomatoes, and a piece of Double Gloucester cheese. In the compartments on the right, I placed wedges of sliced fresh orange, prunes with an elephant food pick, and mini kaya (coconut jam) sandwiches. I wrapped the kaya sandwiches in greaseproof paper to protect the white bread from prune um, stains (you know how your fingers go brown with sticky prune when you hold them?) . I really enjoyed the chicken – the barbecue sauce gave it a flavour that reminded me of smoked chicken, just like this smoked chicken in a previous bento.
A busy weekend coming up – we’re going to the shops this morning, have an engagement party to attend tonight and I have to do my tax return tomorrow as well as the usual writing of blog posts, replying to comments/emails etc. :)
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
i am missing Kaya! i can’t find any here. i have to make it on my own i guess. do u have any kaya recipe that you can recommend?
coldy smokey bbq chicken is the best…
Love this Bento box with all the taste and flavor combinations. Just curious, what does coconut jam taste like? I’ve never had or heard of it here in the States but my interest is piqued.. seems like something you could use for yummy dessert applications, too (like between two brownies!).. :0
I am currently in Singapore and this morning I had a fantastic breakfast of kaya toast and tea… yum. I can’t find any place in Australia that does kaya toast like it’s done in Singapore/Malaysia.
Kiran,
My mum does have a recipe, but I need to ask her if she won’t mind sharing it. I’ve never made kaya myself, so I don’t have a recipe of my own to share. Maybe one of my readers will.
Bryan,
Oh yeah. It was great.
PhillyGirl,
It’s actually not that coconutty in flavour. They also use pandan leaves to flavour it, so there’s a bit of the pandan flavour too (though if you don’t know the flavour of pandan I guess that won’t help!). The jam’s like a custardy sort of sweet flavour. Ugh – maybe someone else will do better with a description! :-P
dea,
I prefer kaya on fresh white bread myself – toast is ok but I think the toasted bread adds another flavour and texture I’m quite happy not to have – so I can focus on the sweet sweet kaya. :)
OMG! Do I detect a 1950s laminate table top underneath the pretty food photos? One with a metal edge around it? If so, how cool! And do you have matching chairs?
Rhonda,
Yes, it’s a round Formica table with a metal edge! It used to belong to my family/parents, but I ended up with it when mum and dad moved to a smaller home. I think they would’ve gotten rid of it, and I couldn’t bear that. Jac doesn’t really like it, but I refuse to part with it. I also have a grey rectangular Formica table which I bought from a secondhand/antique/knick-knack shops in Mt Lawley. It came with Formica chairs but not matching ones – the chairs are blue. When I was a kid in Malaysia we had a pink Formica table. I loved it.