Bento Ham Roll-Ups

Due to demand - and also a personal need to keep track of successful recipes - here's an easy to make bento main dish that could probably double as an appetizer too. 😊

Recipe

• Ham slices, sandwich thin 
• ~1.5" section of carrot, julienned 
• ~1.5" long pieces of raw green beans, ends trimmed
• Shredded cheese of choice
• 1 Tbsp light soy sauce*
• 1 Tbsp mirin*
• 1 Tbsp cooking sake 

1. Lay out a slice of ham (or overlap two small slices) and place 2-3 green beans near one end of the slice.  Add an equal amount of carrots and cheese, then starting from the closest end to the mixings, carefully roll contents up.
2. In a frying pan, heat up a little bit of cooking oil spread across the bottom. Once hot, place roll-ups carefully in the pan and add soy sauce, mirin, and sake (it's a 1:1:1 ratio, so feel free if you need to increase the amount here - there should be just enough liquids to fully coat the bottom). Cover and let simmer for 4-8 minutes.
3. Once most of the liquids have been cooked down, turn off heat and, leaving roll-ups in the pan, turn them over carefully. Once cool or just slightly warm, remove from pan and cut into desired sizes. 

          

As you can see, I used to make these with turkey slices, but no matter the brand, it always took a lot of work to keep it from becoming a mess. Turkey was just too dry to roll up neatly and often the cheese would ooze out everywhere. So I switched to ham which is more flexible, and Jeff actually likes it better this way because the ham makes the roll-ups even saltier!

* In case anyone is interested, I've included links to purchase the products I like to use online, but 99% of everything can be picked up at your local Uwajimaya!