Multicolored Lunch Box

Hi everyone! Happy New Year! Did you start off to a great New Year? Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? This year, I want my family and I to become healthier and happier. I also want to share many more delicious recipes this year. One of the categories that I want to post more often this year is Korean lunch box recipes a.k.a. dosirak in Korean. Many people are interested in it, so I will be more than happy to share fun and tasty lunch box ideas. As a start, I will make this multiple colored Korean lunch box. I got my inspiration from Japanese Soboro bento. Basically, you put your choice of side-dishes on top of rice for your lunch box. My design has a good combination of Korean flavors and is also colorful, so you will love it. I used egg for yellow, cucumber for green, kimchi for red, and beef for brown. You can prepare things ahead of time, so you can easily can pack the lunch box quickly in the morning.

Yield: 1 Serving

Short Korean Lesson

• BaekHyeolGu (백혈구) = White Blood Cell
• JeokHyeolGu (적혈구) = Red Blood Cell

Video Instructions

Main Ingredients:

• 1½ Cups Cooked Short Grain Rice
• 1 Egg (1 Pinch Slat, ½ Tbsp Cooking Oil)
• ½ Cup Stir-fried Cucumber Side
• Some Sesame Seeds (For Garnish)

Beef Ingredients: (4 Servings)

• 1 Cup Ground Beef
• 1 Tbsp Green Onion
• 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Water
• 1 tsp Garlic, Minced
• 1 tsp Sugar
• ½ tsp Sesame Oil
• 2 Pinches Black Pepper

Radish Kimchi Ingredients:

• ¼ Cup Bachelor Radish Kimchi
• 1 tsp Kimchi Broth
• ¼ tsp Sesame Oil
• ¼ tsp Sesame Seeds

Directions

One night before you pack your lunch, you can prepare the bulgogi topping. Obtain 1 cup of ground beef. You can also use ground pork, chicken, or even firm tofu.

Add 2 Tbsp green onion, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp water, 1 tsp of minced garlic, 1 tsp sugar, ½ tsp sesame oil, and 2 pinches black pepper to the ground beef.

Mix everything together.

Cover it with some plastic wrap. Keep it in the refrigerator overnight. Alternately, if you suddenly have to make this lunch box, you can marinate the meat while you are preparing the other toppings.

I recommend making the cucumber side-dish the night before, since it tastes better when it’s chilled, and you can save some time in the morning. Please check my stir-fried cucumber side recipe post.

The next morning, cook some rice for your lunch box. Whether you use a pressure cooker or electric rice cooker, you can prepare the toppings while the rice is cooking. We already made the cucumber topping before, so for the second topping, the radish kimchi, let’s season it. I love using bachelor radish kimchi, but plain radish kimchi is good too.

Chop about ¼ cup worth of radish kimchi into little chunks.

Season the radish kimchi with 1 tsp Kimchi broth, ¼ tsp sesame oil, and ¼ tsp sesame seeds. Mix everything together, and that is it. With just a few ingredients added to the kimchi, it turned into a tasty side-dish. Set it aside for later.

For the third topping, scrambled eggs, break 1 egg and mix it with a pinch of salt.

On a heated 8-inch nonstick pan, add ½ Tbsp of cooking oil.

Pour the egg mixture into the pan and wait a few seconds.

When the egg mixture starts to become solid, stir it with chopsticks – at first gently – but then break it into little pieces with a spatula. In 1 and a half minutes, the scramble eggs will be done.

For the last topping, the bulgogi, take your marinated ground beef out of the refrigerator. I marinated 4 servings worth of it, so I will divide the beef into 4. We will only cook one serving today.

Put each portion of the unused beef in a snack bag and freeze them until you want to make this lunchbox again. When you want to use it again, I recommend thawing it in the refrigerator overnight for better texture.

Fry the beef in a heated pan for about 3 minutes on high.

When all the liquid from the beef evaporates, and it becomes nice golden brown, it is done.

So, all 4 colorful toppings are ready. By now, your rice will be done cooking too.

For this particular lunch box, I like to use a rectangular-shaped lunch box. Does it look familiar to you? Yes, you are right. I got this container from a Chinese restaurant when I got take out food. Do not throw away this kind of container and reuse it for your lunch box.

Put the cooked rice in the container and spread it out evenly. This container was kind of a big, so I used about 1½ cups of cooked rice.

Now, it’s the fun part. Let’s decorate it with the toppings. For the best look, make sure that you divide the space evenly into 4 strips vertically and fill each with one topping. I tried different color combinations, and this is my favorite order: yellow, green, red, and brown. So, I put the egg first, cucumber next,

then the kimchi, and finally the beef.

If needed, sprinkle some sesame seeds here and there to garnish it.

Yay! The delicious and colorful looking lunch box is done. It was so simple and easy for this amazing looking lunch box, don’t you think so?

Wrap a spoon, fork, and paper towel in some plastic wrap. Then put them on top of the toppings.

If you do not want to use the lunch box container again, you can just throw away everything after you eat it.

 

My second son, Logan loved it so much that he said he can eat it every day. lol I hope you enjoyed my lunch box recipe. If you want to see more lunch box ideas, please let me know.