1 of my fav refreshing bento

Very often, I prefer my food to be light. Not too heavy in spices, salt or sugar. Everything is either boiled or steamed. And, I'll just eat them with just some soya sauce to taste. Like this bento which I'll prepare at least twice a week.

Refreshing.

Contents: cold udon, prawn dumplings, fresh salad, soba tsuyu sauce (in sauce bottle), katsuobushi, seaweed strips, sesame seeds

Sauce for Soba or Udon which I'm using now

It is made of a strong mixture of dashi*, sweetened soy sauce (also called "kaeshi") and mirin.

*Dashi (出汁, だし) is a class of soup and cooking stocks considered fundamental to Japanese cooking. Shizuo Tsuji wrote in 1980 that "many substitutes for dashi are possible, but without dashi, dishes are merely a la japonaise and lack the authentic flavor." Dashi forms the base for miso soups, clear broth soups, Japanese noodle broths, and many Japanese simmering liquids.

The most common form of dashi is a simple broth or stock made by boiling kombu (edible kelp) and kezurikatsuo (shavings of katsuobushi) and then, straining the resultant liquid.

Katsuobushi

Katsuobushi (鰹節 or かつおぶし) is the Japanese name for a preparation of dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis, sometimes referred to as bonito). Katsuobushi and kombu (a type of kelp) are the main ingredients of dashi, a broth that forms the basis of many soups (such as miso soup) and sauces (e.g., soba no tsukejiru) in Japanese cuisine. It is today typically found in bags of small pink-brown shavings. Larger, thicker shavings, called kezurikatsuo (削り鰹; けずりかつお), are used to make the ubiquitous dashi stock. Smaller, thinner shavings, called hanakatsuo (花鰹; はなかつお), are used as a flavoring and topping for many Japanese dishes, such as okonomiyaki. Traditionally, large chunks of katsuobushi were kept at hand and shaved when needed with an instrument called a katsuobushi kezuriki, similar to a wood plane, but in the desire for convenience this form of preparation has nearly disappeared. Katsuobushi, however, retains its status as one of the primary ingredients in Japanese cooking today.

Katsuobushi's umami flavor comes from its high inosinic acid content. Traditionally made katsuobushi, known as karebushi, is deliberately planted with fungus (Aspergillus glaucus) in order to reduce moisture.

When hanakatsuo is added as a topping to a hot dish, the steam has the effect of making the flakes move as if dancing; because of this, katsuobushi topping is also known as dancing fish flakes.

I use katsuobushi quite often. Either within my sushi roll or as a topping for my noodles. I think one doesn't need too much ingredients to make a dish taste good (避免画蛇添足的情况出现). You just need the correct one/s that complement with each other (画龙点睛的作用).

I don't do a shopping list when I go to the supermarket. I just see what's available within my budget and eat accordingly to the season. This is the best balance in diet one can get if you follow the flow of the seasons. Sometimes, it's not me who are doing the grocery shopping, so I just see what I can find and use some imagination to prepare my bento.