"shiso" news and stories

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. The boxes can range from austere lacquered trays to multi-tiered Hello Kitty confections of neon pink plastic. The meals themselves are anything from rice and leftovers to elaborate themed affairs of Pikachu-shaped dumplings with sesame seed eyes and carved radish trees. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Today's bento, from Mamichan, features three onigiri filled with ume (sour plum) and shiso (AKA Japanese basil). Does it say something about my psyche that all three nori faces look a little evil to me? On the side is some turkey bacon and carrot stir fry, sliced spring rolls, and roasted beet.

Source

This week, the Los Angeles Times Food section touches on every corner of the world:

• Zakuski is the Russian version of tapas, made just for vodka. The recipes are Spinach Pkhali, a dip, Salad Olivier, Quick Khachapuri (Georgian cheese pie), Eggs stuffed with caviar, and Smoked salmon and shiitakes on toast.
• From Japanese cuisine, there is shiso, with recipes for Broiled citrus with shiso, Italian tuna and shiso sandwich, and Angel hair pasta with fresh shiso-herb mix.
• On the restaurant scene, SIV goes Italian and gives Melograno two stars (**), while Linda Burum adds Ecuadorean at El Caserio in Silver Lake.

The Wall Street Journal is speculating about the future of flavor. As flavors that were uncommon 10 years ago - and virtually unheard of before that - are now in mainstream venues like fast food restaurants and packages of potato chips, chefs are now looking beyond these flavors to find the next hot item for their menus. In some cases, chefs are even turning away from the "natural" trends so popular right now and using artificial (chemical) flavorings to bring out unusual sensations, like the menthol crystals that Wylie Dufresne uses in a raw fish dish at wd-50 and the flavorings of oak, pine and leather that Heston Blumenthal incorporates at The Fat Duck. While menthol crystals are unlikely to appear in your local market, ready to be sprinkled on your sashimi, WSJ speculates that it could be one of these ten flavors to make it to the big time: Thai basil, tamarind, musk, shiso, pomegranate, guava, leather, pine, florals and/or molé.

Personally, I'm skeptical about musk because it is a relatively common flavor in other countries that has not proved to be popular in the US to date. I know that I am not a fan of it at all. But I must say that leather flavoring seems just a bit less likely even than musk....