Just as a little teaser (some of you might have already seen the album already), but I attended San Diego Comic-con a few weeks ago (I know, I’m late to the party) and will be putting together a post with some of the pictures soon. I think I honestly had more fun getting pictures of all of the different cosplayers than I did in many of the panels (who doesn’t like standing in line?)

But the other thing is that San Diego weather is incredible. Coupled with the fact that Boston was sweltering (high 90′s 100% humidity) the week before, 75 degrees, low humidity, and the ocean-breeze was a paradise to me. And “mostly cloudy” on the forecast really means two or three clouds in the distance. I think they do that just to change it up, otherwise it might be difficult to keep down a job as a meteorologist there right? Same thing every day: 75 degrees, sunny.

Anyway, the past few weeks have been quite a blur. Honestly, the saying that as you get older you get busier and have less time rings true. I can’t fathom how some people manage to hold down a job, take care of their kids, maintain a house, cook every night, and still find time to keep up with a hobby! That’s true productivity right there.

One thing I’ve found time to cook lately though is a breakfast hash. Usually, when I grab breakfast, I usually think of hash as just potatoes (though there’s nothing wrong with that). Then, I had brunch at a couple places that added a few different things (vegetables, turkey…duck!) and I started rethinking the idea. I mean, why couldn’t I cook something like that up on a lazy Sunday morning with some of the stuff lying around the fridge?

So I did it. I had an onion, a couple peppers, and then I picked up a ham steak and the potatoes the day before. Then, after consulting Simply Recipes, I got started. The hash, a couple eggs, and some freshly buttered toast makes a good start to a new week doesn’t it?

I’ve also made this with sausage meat and some other root vegetables like parsnips and butternut squash. It works!

Breakfast Hash with ham

Time : 30 minutes
Serves : 4-6

Ingredients:
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 red pepper, finely chopped
- 1 orange pepper, finely chopped
- 3 – 4 medium yukon gold potatoes (slightly larger than a juice box)
- 1/3 lb ham steak, finely chopped
- 1/2 to 3/4 tsp fresh thyme
- salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Boil a pot of salted water. Peel potatoes and boil them for about 12 minutes. Remove and drain. Chop the potatoes into small cubes
2. Add the butter to a cast iron pan over medium heat. When the butter melts, add the chopped onions for about 1-2 minutes, getting the onions well coated.
3. Add in the peppers, mix well. Cook another 2-3 minutes.
4. Add the ham and chopped potatoes. Season with some salt, pepper, and the thyme. Cook for another 10 minutes, stirring every couple minutes or so to get some sear throughout the potatoes.
5. Taste and correct for salt and pepper, then remove to a serving bowl and serve immediately.

Note:
A couple times, I cooked some maple breakfast sausages prior to cooking the hash. Then I used 1 tbsp less butter to make the hash. The hash turned out a little bit sweeter.

Chicken Piccata is something I used to make a long time ago but for one reason or another, stopped in the past couple years. Never could figure out why. Maybe because it has butter and no mushrooms. That could be it.

I’ve been experimenting with some low-light photography as of late for the club at work. Our assignment the past week was “still life” and of course I abused my poetic license to interpret that more as “things that are still” as opposed to the more traditional sense (That and all the actual still life I shot sucked). I used the shot above and the one below as my examples. One tip I did pick up while doing the assignment was how to get some of the glare off of the food/chillies. The light source was in the upper left hand corner of the shot and was blowing out that section of the subject so I took a magazine (Car and Driver June 2011 in fact) and held it between the light source and the food. Worked wonders, no glare and didn’t really reduce the lighting that much.

Thai Chillies

And one more picture that didn’t make the cut. More or less because I didn’t focus it right and was too lazy to zoom in the lcd to check. Oh well, I’ll figure it out next time =)

Poker chips

I’ll probably be posting the assignments for our club here every now and then. It keeps me on my toes and forces me to experiment and learn new techniques. And the club is very helpful, suggesting different things I’d normally never consider but after thinking about it, make sense. And they encouraged me to buy a shutter-release, probably one of the most useful pieces of equipment that I picked up so far. All for 5 bucks too, can’t imagine why I never got one! I also picked up Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography books, so far I’ve nearly finished book 1 and a lot of what I’ve read so far has stuck with me since. Now to just find more opportunities to apply all the new techniques =P

As for the photos, one day I’ll get a couple more tablecloths. It’s getting boring isn’t it?

Anyway, onto the important stuff…the food!

Chicken Piccata

Time : 20 minutes
Serves : 4

Ingredients:
– 1 whole boneless chicken breast
– 2/3 cup flour, for dredging
– 4 tbsp butter
– 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
– salt and pepper to taste
– 2 lemons, juiced
– 1/2 cup chicken broth
– Couple tbsp heavy cream
– 1/4 cup capers, rinsed
– handful of fresh Italian parsley, chopped fine
– 1 lb pasta (linguine, spaghetti, fettucini)

Method:
1. Cut chicken breast into two halves, then slice lengthwise to create 4 total fillets. Use a meat tenderizer to pound into 1/3 inch pieces.
2. Season chicken with some salt and pepper and then dredge in flour.
3. In a large frying pan (large enough to hold all 4 fillets later on), heat 2 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter over medium heat. Add in two of the fillets and cook on each side for about 2 minutes. Remove cooked fillets, add 2 tbsp olive oil, and another tbsp of butter and cook the other fillets. When finished, set all the chicken aside.
4. Add in the lemon juice and chicken broth. Stir well, making sure to scrape up the tasty bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add in the capers and bring to a boil. Taste and adjust salt/pepper accordingly.
5. In a separate stock pot, bring several quarts of water to a boil and add in some salt. Cook pasta according to boxed directions until al dente (or whatever firmness you like).
6. Return the chicken to the frying pan and simmer for another 5 minutes, turning occasionally. Remove the chicken once again.
7. Add the last of the butter to the sauce along with the heavy cream. Stir well.
8. Plate the chicken with a helping of pasta, pour sauce over top and garnish with some chopped fresh Italian parsley.

One of the ideas I’d been toying with for the blog lately has been to start adding posts about restaurants. Not that I don’t go out often, just that a lot of the time, getting good pictures at a restaurant winds up being:

a) Obnoxious, as I need to use a flash since lighting is generally soft
b) Just plain obnoxious

But I see so many other blogs pulling it off so I might give it a try ( or ask for advice =P )

As you may have noticed in the past couple posts (and the next couple coming up), I’ve been using a lot of pasta. Well, aside from having an almost unnatural love for anything noodle-related, pasta was on sale at the store so like I usually do, I buy way too much of it. Now I’ve got 10 pounds of pasta in the cupboard (not counting soba, wonton noodles, rice cakes, etc). Hard life, isn’t it?

To be completely truthful, the recipe I used for this dish called for a handful of basil leaves. Two weeks ago, I went ahead and planted a bunch of herbs (no garden, so they’re just in pots) but when I went to make up this dish, the basil plant didn’t quite have enough leaves yet (I would have had to harvest the whole plant, but I don’t think that would’ve done me any good) so I went without. It wound up a little more “lemon-y” than I would’ve liked (the combination of me eyeballing the lemon juice and not having the basil probably did me in, but I managed to correct for that) but definitely a tasty dish to go with some grilled/broiled/pan-fried chicken.

Creamy lemon pasta with chicken

Time : 25-30 minutes
Serves : 4

Recipe adapted from Ree at The Pionner Woman Cooks

Ingredients:
– 1 whole chicken breast (marinated however you like), filleted into 4 pieces
– 1 lb Penne/Rigatoni-like pasta
– 4 tbsp butter
– 1 tbsp olive oil
– 2 lemons, juiced
– 1 cup heavy cream
– 1 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
– Salt and pepper to taste
– Pinch of nutmeg
– Some frozen peas (Maybe 1 to 1 1/2 cups)

Method:
1) Boil water in a large stockpot. Add some salt. Cook pasta until al dente, set aside in a large serving bowl after draining.
2) Bring a saute pan over medium heat. Add the butter and olive oil in, wait about 30 seconds to a minute for the butter to melt. Mix together.
3) Add in the lemon juice, stir together. Add in the cream, stir and bring to a simmer.
4) Add the Parmesan cheese, pinch of nutmeg, and some salt and pepper. Taste and correct as necessary.
5) Add in the frozen peas and cook for about another minute.
6) Combine the sauce and pasta in the serving bowl, toss, and serve.

Not quite sure what’s with the ridiculous weather these days but after 90 degree days in May and 50 degree days in June, I think I’m ready for snow in July. We even had a few tornados blow through and a good amount of hail! Nothing to see here right? Just your typical New England late Spring / early Summer.

Apologies in advance on the picture. As is with most of my cooking, I cook, then I eat. Sometimes I’m starving and dig in right away and sometimes I just plain forget to take a picture before putting everything away. Fortunately this time I remembered right before I chowed down (hence the hasty photo, I was famished!) but couldn’t be bothered to set up the table any better =P

About a month ago, I found myself reading a lot more about photography and chatting with some of the folks at work. Turns out there’s a photography club and they run workshops and assignments every other week. It’s always great to have another pair of eyes look at some of your shots and help you along the way, and my coworkers have been great in being patient with my questions and out-of-focus / off-balance photos. It’s definitely gotten me more interested in photography.

But…there’s a catch here. See, there’s a slippery slope when it comes to photography, especially the equipment. I got my first DSLR about 4 years ago, shot in auto-mode almost all the time. After about a year, I switched to Aperture priority mode and was wow’ed by the improvement in the pictures just by simply framing a shot. Last year I picked up a 5D from a coworker that upgraded his camera and started shooting manual mode most of the time. Now, I still suck but notice the trend here…the equipment is getting progressively more sophisticated and…expensive. Add in a tripod, external flash, and a padded bag, well…you get the idea.

…And then I went face first down the slippery slope. About a month ago, I picked up the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. It hasn’t left my 5D since. But it left my wallet looking quite a bit lean.

How deep is this rabbit hole anyway?

Spaghetti with Sausage and Peppers

Time : 30 minutes
Serves : 5-6

Recipe adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking

Ingredients:
- 3 – 4 Pork sausages (I usually like using sweet Italian), sliced
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 2 red bell peppers
- 1 onion, chopped
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 12 oz can of plum tomatoes, chopped
- Salt + Pepper to taste
- 1 lb pasta (Spaghetti, Linguine, any kind of long noodle)

For tossing the pasta:
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Method:
1) Peel the skin off the peppers. Remove stem and seeds, cut into 1 inch squares.
2) Add olive oil to a large frying pan. Add in the chopped onions, heat to medium high. Cook until onions start to become golden.
3) Add in the sliced sausages, cook about 2 minutes.
4) Add in the chopped peppers, season with a little salt and pepper. Give the pan a good shake/stir and then cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5) Add in the chopped tomatoes with liquid, bring to a simmer for 15-20 minutes.
6) While simmering the tomatoes, boil some water in a large saucepan/stockpot, add some salt, and cook the pasta until al dente.
7) After the pasta is finished, strain it in a colander and then pour into a serving bowl along with the butter and cheese. Toss well to get everything nice and coated. Then pour in the sauce, toss well, and serve.

So, as you might’ve noticed, it’s been roughly 6 months since I posted last. Due to work constraints, commitments, and hitting the 100 recipe mark (will update this later), I’ve been sticking to the familiar stuff through the last two seasons and I figured I’d be boring you all with posts of the same stuff over and over again.

Well, that was the fastest 6 months ever.

Now, I’m back (not really with a vengeance)! Currently in the middle of an Italian food kick (Don’t know why, but I feel like this weather is great for some Italian) so that’s what you’ll see over the next few posts (I think). It also could be I have a thing for anything with noodles. And sauce. Just flipping through the 50+ pages of different sauces in Marcella Hazan’s definitive cookbook had my drooling into a bowl. Literally.

So I decided to get off my (lazy) bum and cook some new stuff up. One quick trip to Russo’s later and I’m ready with ingredients fit for the next week (and 3 different sauces…I can’t wait!).

This time I made some fettucini alfredo, would you believe that I’ve never made it before? Normally, I’ve associated the dish with a soft pile of cheesy overcooked noodles with heaps of butter on top. Maybe just some horrible memories of leftovers one time but needless to say, it’s not a dish I normally would pick out of a menu. But Marcella to the rescue! Her version is decidedly less buttery and more savory…not to mention incredibly easy to make and a good compliment to a lot of Italian main courses.

And for a main course? Lemon parsley chicken. I’ve had this a couple times before, most notably by my friend’s mother years ago when I was in middle school (Hmm, that’s something like 15 years ago, eesh).

Anyway, here we go!

Both recipes are adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Lemon Parsley Chicken

Serves 4
Time : 30 minutes

Ingredients:
– 1 tbsp canola oil
– 2 tbsp butter
– 1 whole chicken breast, halved, cut into 4 fillets (details below)
– Salt and pepper to taste
– 1 lemon
– 3 tbsp chopped parsley
– red pepper flakes (optional)

Method:
1. Prepping the chicken breast. Cut the whole chicken breast in half. Take each half, press firmly down onto the cutting board with your palm and carefully slice horizontally in half. You should end up with 4 chicken cutlets. Using parchment paper, pound each cutlet to about 1/4 inch thickness.
2. Add canola oil and 1.5 tbsp butter to a frying pan large enough to hold all of the cutlets. Turn to medium high.
3. After the butter melts, add the chicken cutlets. Cook about 30-45 seconds on each side and then remove. Sprinkle with a dash of salt and pepper.
4. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the pan. Simmer briefly for about 30 seconds and scrape up any loose bits of chicken stuck to the pan.
5. Add the chopped parsley and the rest of the butter, stir vigorously to combine and turn the heat to low.
6. Add the chicken cutlets back to the pan.
7. Cook another few minutes on each side, making sure to turn the fillets over in the sauce 2-3 times to coat well then remove to a platter and serve.

Fettucini Alfredo

Serves 4
Time : 15 minutes

Ingredients
- 1 cup (8 fl oz) heavy cream
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 lb fettucini or other pasta
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Dash of nutmeg

Method
1. In a large saute pan, add 2/3 cup of heavy cream and the butter over medium heat. Cook about a minute until thickened. Turn off heat and remove
2. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. You’ll want slightly underdone pasta (it’ll finish in the saute pan) so make sure to taste the pasta as the timer gets close. Drain in a colander.
3. Add he pasta to the pan with the sauce, turn the heat to low and toss the pasta to thoroughly coat each noodle.
4. Add the rest of the cream, 3/4 cup of the parmesan cheese, the pinch of nutmeg. Add some salt and pepper gradually, tasting as you go.
5. Toss the pasta again to mix well, taste and add salt/pepper as necessary, then remove to a serving bowl with the rest of the parmesan cheese on the side.

It’s been incredibly cold the past couple weeks here in Boston. Usually it ends up around the low 40′s high 30′s in December but we’ve already had our fair share of subzero Fahrenheit days already (three weeks ago it was 7 degrees out when I left for work in the morning!). I’ve been cooking up a lot of stews and other winter comfort food lately, but nothing really new or improved. More like “revisiting” a familiar wine =P

But I can’t say I’ve exactly been inactive though! I’ve got all my Christmas shopping done! Earliest I’ve finished shopping ever (It helped that most of it was done online, gotta love getting it done from the comfort of an armchair and a glass of scotch (A nice pour of Glenmorangie 10Yr). And that being finished, I celebrated by hitting some of Boston’s restaurants, some of the recent ones being Giacomo’s in the North End, Craigie on Main in Cambridge, Mistral in the Back Bay, and Neptune Oyster in the North End. Fantastic, all of them. The raw bar at Neptune Oyster is fantastic, over a dozen selections and mostly local too, which is a plus. And the burger at Craigie? I’ve been scoffed at, but I’d definitely go out of my way to enjoy the burger again. Even at $21, I think it’s a steal for dinner. Local freshly ground beef, homemade bun and condiments, local bacon, all cooked just right. Enough juice in the burger to make each bite tasty and the toasted bun just enough to keep from making a mess but not oversized for the pattie.

But anyway, onto today’s recipe. Even though I’ve been cooking a lot of the recipes built up over the past two to three years, I managed to cobble together a nice recipe for a homestyle Cantonese recipe: Beef brisket and daikon radish stew.

Chinese Beef and Daikon stew

Recipe adapted from Christina’s recipes.

Ingredients:
- 2 lbs brisket (more or less, up to you)
- 3 slices of ginger
- 3 whole star anise
- 3 tb Chu Hou Sauce
- 1 piece rock sugar (optional)
- 2 L water or broth (enough water to cover brisket)
- 2 carrots
- 2 tsp l. soy sauce
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1 tb starch + 2 tb water
- Bean thread sheets (optional)

Method:
1. Blanche brisket to get rid of some of the fattiness
2. In a pot, saute oil, ginger, chu hou sauce. Add beef and brown.
3. Add anise, sugar, and water/stock. Bring to simmer.
4. Stew for about 20-30 minutes
5. Add in seasoning (soy sauce, oyster sauce, corn starch, water), daikon and carrots. Add a little more Chu Hou sauce to taste.
6. Add in the bean thread sheets about 5-10 minutes before serving

It’s been a while. No, no, I haven’t slacked (maybe I have) but I just haven’t had a whole ton of new stuff to post about. Maybe I should expand and post about some other stuff. I’ll figure it out.

Anyway, one of the local establishments in Boston (Porter Square in Cambridge specifically), Cafe Mami, is pretty well known for serving home-style Japanese food. Their signature items are a couple variations of hambagu and their curry (my favorite is definitely the curry). I think for the last year or two I’ve been going, I’ve always gotten the same thing, Tatsuta Curry (Deep fried chicken in curry). Yum!

Tatsuta Curry – Cafe Mami

I always wondered what the magic was behind the deep fried chicken part. I mean, it can’t be THAT much, can it? Turns out it’s not! After perusing the net and digging through a couple cookbooks, I came up with something (The recipe at Just Hungry was the original inspiration that I worked with). Add in some cheese, an egg, some vegetables…and I found myself with a nice cozy hot/spicy dinner on a cold-ish rainy night. Now if I had a fireplace and football was on, that’s be awesome (football was on but no fireplace sadly…and I had to sit through the “game” that NBC showed – Green Bay beating Dallas down. Game was over in 8 minutes. Ew).

I used a boxed curry mix, the hot mix from S&B. I tried making a curry paste once and failed horribly (it was inedible) and I always thought the boxed curry tasted pretty good, so why not use it. Here’s a picture of it below:

The only thing I was skeptical about was the frying part. I don’t like frying. It’s messy, smelly, and generally unpleasant for the kitchen (Would rather buy the fried food elsewhere) but I figured I’d give this one a try. I used a deep saucepan to try to minimize the splashing and used just enough oil to cover the top of the chicken while it was frying, no more than that. And for cleaning up, for the love of what’s good, please let the oil cool down and then soak it up with paper towels, wrap in a plastic bag and toss in the garbage. Don’t pour that stuff down your drain.

Chicken Karaage Curry

Serves: 4
Time : 1 hour – 1 hour 30 minutes (depends how well you multi-task =P )

Karaage recipe originally adapted from Just Hungry

Ingredients:
- 8 chicken thighs, boneless, skinless, trimmed
- 1 box (700g) S&B Curry
- 2 carrots
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 6 cups water
- cornstarch for dredging
- eggs
- some mozzarella cheese (shredded or block is fine – I don’t like using fresh mozz)

Marinade:
- 1-2 inch piece of ginger, grated
- 4 tb light soy sauce
- 1.5 tb sake
- sprinkle of sugar
- dab of sesame oil

Method:
For the karaage:
1. Mix the chicken and marinade, set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Heat about 1/2 inch canola oil in a deep saucepan.
3. Lightly dredge chicken thighs in cornstarch.
4. Fry each piece until finished.

For the curry:
1. Add a little bit of oil to a saute pan.
2. Stir fry the onions and carrot until onions are lightly browned.
3. Add in the water, bring to a boil, and simmer until carrots cooked through.
4. Add in the curry mix, bring to a simmer again (If you have a bay leaf or two, feel free to toss them in)
5. When cooked to the right consistency, serve over warm rice.

Plating:
1. In a deep bowl, scoop some warm rice
2. Place some cheese along the top of the rice
3. Place a couple chicken karaage pieces on top of the cheese
4. Pour some piping hot curry over top.
5. Top with an egg, cooked however you like it.
6. Dig in!!!

I never really think about this kind of thing but cooking the dish above got me started. When I cook or dine out, I usually think about a cuisine’s common ingredients, like basil in Italian cooking or say cilantro in Hispanic cooking. I tend not to think about what isn’t used in a particular style until I see a recipe that seems a little unusual.

In this case, it’s butter. I know, butter! It’s something I use almost on a daily basis but I can’t really think of any other time I’ve used butter in cooking Chinese food. The closest I can think of is when I use a tiny pad to keep an egg from sticking to a pan.

I haven’t been cooking a whole lot of new stuff lately so I apologize that posts have been far and few in between. Now that I’ve built up a decent binder of recipes I like, I’ve been going back to them fairly often. Maybe I’ll post a few more cooking catchups just with updated pictures =)

Recipe adapted from hzrt8w of eGullet

Butter and Black Pepper Chicken

Time: 35-40 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
– 1 – 1.5 lb Chicken breast, cubed
– 1/8 – 1/4 stick butter
– 2 – 3 scallions, chopped
– 5 cloves garlic, minced
– 1 tsp sambal olek or other chili sauce
– salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
– 1/4 cup chicken broth
– 1 tsp sugar
– 1 tsp white vinegar
– 1/2 tsp corn starch + 1 tsp water

Marinade:
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1/2 tsp white pepper
– sprinkle of salt
– 1 tsp soy sauce
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing Rice Wine
– 1 tsp corn starch

Method:
1. Mix the marinade with the chicken and set aside for about 20 minutes.
2. Heat a frying pan over medium high heat. Swirl in some oil. Tip in the chicken and let cook undisturbed for about a minute. Then turn to cook the other side for another minute or so. Remove once about 3/4 cooked.
3. Add in the garlic and chili sauce. Cook until fragrant, then add in some salt, the white parts of the scallions and about a tsp of freshly ground black pepper. Dash in 1 tsp vinegar.
4. Add the chicken broth, 1 tsp sugar, and corn starch slurry. Stir in and cook for about 30 seconds.
5. Add chicken back in, stir well to coat the chicken.
6. Add the rest of the scallions, 1 tsp soy sauce, and more salt and black pepper to taste.

I love steak. Especially ribeye steak. So what if it’s one of the fattiest cuts. Doesn’t make it less good in my eyes =)

And what a way to kick off the Fall season (And football season). It’s just about time to switch over to heavier cooking once again (read: meatloaf, mac&cheese, roasts, hot pot, etc) which’ll be a nice change. Weather has been fantastic lately though…where was this earlier this year? (70 degrees and sunny)

Seriously though, a well-seasoned medium-rare ribeye steak is probably one of my favorite things to eat. And it’s ridiculously easy to do. I’ve done it on the grill, on a frying pan, and most recently in a cast-iron pan (which I think is the best way to cook it anyway).

Note: I think I’ve posted about Ribeye at least two to three times already but I thought this deserved it’s own post since I used a cast iron pan this time. Made a huge difference!

Ribeye Steak

For a steak about an inch thick.

Ingredients:
– 1 lb Ribeye steak
– salt & pepper
– canola oil

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. On each side of the steak, season with salt, pepper, and some canola oil. Rub into the steak well.
3. Heat the cast-iron pan until almost smoking hot. Add a little oil and add the steak. Let sear for 3 – 5 minutes and then turn over and sear the other side for the same amount of time. Can sear a little longer if you want it a little crispier.
4. Move cast iron pan to the stove and bake for another 10-12 minutes, depending on how rare you like your steak. 10 minutes should probably keep it in the medium rare range.

Note: Times will differ based on the steak thickness

Recycling an old recipe today…I’ve been making a lot of the sub 20 minute meals lately and Pork Katsu-don is a classic. The cutlets, sauce, and rice can all be prepared beforehand, making this dish pretty simple to assemble (just need to chop an onion and scallion and you’re good to go). I also have a bag of Japanese pickles that I’ve been meaning to use, which helped in the decision making too =p

Not much to mention today though, been super busy (I know I know, tons of other bloggers are incredibly busy but manage to maintain, upgrade, AND post a lot. I, on the other hand, am a slacker).

Probably will start posting about some local restaurants again sometime. I just went through a year’s worth of pictures and there’s a lot to write about!

Pork Katsu-don

Ingredients
4 Pork cutlets (boneless pork chops – about 3/4 a pound)
2 medium onions, sliced
8 eggs, lightly beaten (can use more if you like)

Sauce
3 tbsp sake
3 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp mirin
4 tbsp soy sauce
3/4 cup water
1/3 tsp Dashi flakes

For Dredging
Flour
Panko Breadcrumbs
More eggs, beaten

Method
1. Use a meat tenderizer to flatten out the cutlets.
2. Dredge the cutlets first in the flour, egg, then breadcrumbs.
3. Pan fry until almost cooked through, set aside.
4. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil and then add the sake, sugar, mirin, and soy sauce. Return to a boil, add the dashi and simmer.
5. Pour 1/4 of the sauce into a small frying pan and bring the sauce to a simmer under medium heat. Add 1/4 of the onion.
6. Slice a cutlet along the width (try to maintain the shape of the cutlet) and place in the pan on top of the onions. Then pour 1/4 of the eggs on either sie of the cutlet. Cover and simmer for about a minute or so.
7. Remove cover and serve over rice.
8. Repeat 4-7 for the rest of the cutlets.
9. Top with some chopped scallions

NOTE: If you really like sauce, you can add 50% more to the recipe or even double it.