Japanese comfort food! One day I will learn how to make Japanese curry…you know from scratch not with a cube. But for now you get my version of Katsu Don! I have tried making Dashi before but I am not very good at it… so I still just use chicken stock for this and it tastes great 🙂 Plus, while being a relatively simple meal, it is actually pretty time consuming to make… so taking one extra step out of it makes it less hair pulling. It’s one of the 8 year old’s absolute top 3 favorite meals. He will even eat the mushrooms! He quote: “only like(s) mushrooms if they are thinly sliced shitake mushrooms and only in katsu don” end quote.
We like this meal with chicken or pork. But I am sure tofu would be great. You could skip the panko in that case and just use fried tofu.
My version was inspired by THIS!
Rice base:
Cook enough Japanese short grain rice to feed however many peeps you got!
*Some restaurants even throw in some glass noodles on top of the rice. I always like this a lot. So if I am feeling fancy I will also cook up some mung bean or yam noodles to go double-starch y’all. It’s fun.
Sauce:
- 3/4 cup chicken stock
- 3 tbsp sake
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp coconut palm sugar
Set aside in a bowl. This is a good amount for 3-4 people. So you can adjust for how many people you want to feed!
Prep:
- 2 onions cooked in olive oil til golden brown (set aside in pan) *** USE A METAL FRYING PAN THAT IS OVEN SAFE!!
- Thinly sliced shitake mushrooms sauteed in olive oil (set aside in bowl)
- 3* eggs beaten in a bowl (can add tograshi, black sesame seeds, white pepper to this if you want!) – Almost an egg per person. So for 4 people I did 3. So adjust as you wish!
Katsu:
- Chicken or pork or tofu strips
- Flour, white pepper, tograshi
- Egg wash (egg and a little bit of water whipped to a frenzy)
- Panko
Dust protein with flour mix. Dip in egg wash. Coat with panko. I find using chopsticks makes this much easier. And I use a different pair for each coating so they don’t get a globby and gluey and gross. Like my alliteration? Aww yeah.
Once you have all your strips. Cook in pre-heated oil (medium hot) in a shallow pan til golden brown on all sides. BE CAREFUL! I like to put one of those metal mesh thingies over top to prevent hot oil from splashing all over the stove and myself. Rest and drain on paper towel. The protein, not you chef! I usually overcook my meat a bit because I am paranoid about undercooked meat. But obviously if you are using tofu you don’t have to worry about that!
Accoutrements:
- Nori
- Chopped Italian parsley
- Black sesame seeds
- Shichimi Tograshi
HOW TO:
So you got yourself a pan full of fried onions? Check. You have sauteed shitakes? Check. A bowl full of Don Sauce? Great. You have pre-heated your oven to 400F or so?
You have katsu-ed strips of protein draining on paper towel… You have the beaten eggs. You have cooked rice etc.. So basically you have prepped EVERYTHING!
Great!
Now pour the Don Sauce into the pan of onions and reduce by half.
Throw on the katsu strips, parsley, shitakes and pour the egg mix all up on it.
Toss into a hot oven til the egg sets.
Slide this goodness onto beds of rice (and maybe noodles if you went all the way)
Dash on some Tograshi, sesame seeds and heck even some nori if you feel inclined.
Eat right away as the sauce and egg de-crispify the katsu after a while. But it will still taste good later.
YUM!
When I make this again I may experiment with trying to add more veggies. Baked acorn squash slices might be nice or charred asparagus. Oh the possibilities! And certainly if you are doing a TOFU version you may very well want to go ahead and try this or any number of other veggies. Let me know how it turns out!
Don Sauce.
Onions getting browned.
Chicken getting Katsu-ed. Pork works great as well! In fact pork Katsu is a family favourite!
Onions getting acquainted with the sauce.
Need something fresh and green here so we have some Italian parsley for colour!
Egg prepped.
Sauce is reducing nicely!
Mmm the Katsu are all ready and draining off excess oil.
In a very hot oven cooking the egg!
Mmmmmm so hungry just looking at this!
And slide some Katsu on top of your rice and you are ready to demolish!
