Tiny Mandragora Bento

While looking at bentos over this past weekend, I started thinking of a good way to use the quail eggs I had in my fridge to make some mandragora eggs for a bento. I’ve done mandragoras before and even won a prize at the FFXI Fan Festival with my mandragora onigiri bento. This morning I set out to do them and they came out just how I’d envisioned them!

Those of you that have been following my Weight Watchers venture since last week probably noticed that I’m eating the same tuna patties I ate a week ago. Well, it turned out this was lunch for the kids too, so I decided to fry up all four of the ones in the freezer. Anyway, can you guess how I made them?

The first thing I did was boil them. Unfortunately, I then went to watch The Social Network, because the kids were sleeping and I thought I could finish it before they got up. The lesson here is: do not boil eggs and then go watch a movie.

Anyway, I’ll post a full tutorial picture some other day when I don’t have brownish over-boiled eggs. To get them nice and round I wrapped them in plastic wrap and twisted the bottom shut. This helps mold the egg into an oval instead of a pointy egg with a flat bottom. I used a knife tip to cut off the bottom and then I soaked that bottom in soy sauce.

I cut nori ovals and laid them onto the top egg with a little water. I turned it over and cut along the little pointy tip, then reattached the two pieces with the little green food pick. I used a piece of coffee straw to cut the eyes out of cheese, then cut extremely thin strips of nori into little nubs and then used a toothpick to attach them on. Viola!

Aren’t they cuties? I rested them on some brown rice covered with scrambled eggs. Since I overboiled them and they were floating in the pot, I decided I’d better not chance it and eat them. Like I said, I’ll post a full picture tutorial another time. For now, I just wanted you guys to see my results!

Tiny Mandragora Bento Points Calculation

1/2 cup brown rice – 3 points
1 scrambled egg – 2 points
2 tuna patties – 3 points
2 quail eggs – 1 point
veggies – 0 points

Total: 9 points