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!!!

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.

Things are finally getting back to normal here so that means more cooking and updates (I hope)! I’ve had to resort (not that it’s a bad thing) to cooking even quicker weeknight meals than normal (read: 20 minutes instead of an hour) for the better part of two weeks (with a vacation mixed in) but I’m hoping that’s going to change soon.

In line with the 20 minute meals, I’ve been cooking up a popular Japanese homestyle dish, Gyu-don (stir-fried beef bowl). Thin slices of beef with scallions, onions, and a tasty sauce make this one of my favorite dishes to make. And I’m not alone. Yoshinoya, a chain in Japan, makes this one of their signature dishes. It’s also delicious locally at Cafe Mami, an old haunt back in my college days (I still wind up there now and then, just not as often…well, less than twice a week).

I’m still working on getting this just the way I like it (spicier with a slightly thicker sauce) but it’s working out pretty well so far. I compiled a recipe after consulting Marc Matsumoto’s version at No Recipes and Shizuo Tsuji’s A Simple Art, one of the best cookbooks on the whole range of Japanese cooking available. Both are resources I’ve been depending on for a bunch of different dishes. It never ceases to amaze me how people can whip up dishes on the fly, it’s something I’ve never been able to do.

Gyudon

Time: 20 minutes
Serves : 2-3

Adapted from Marc Matsumoto at No Recipes and Shizuo Tsuji’s A Simple Art

Ingredients:
– 2 tsp canola oil
– 1 medium onion, sliced
– 1 lb marbled beef (I use short rib or steak tips), thinly sliced
– 4 tbsp mirin
– 4 tbsp sake
– 2 tbsp soy sauce
– 1 tbsp Gochujang or Sriracha
– 1/4 tsp grated ginger
– 2 stalks scallions, chopped
– Cooked rice
– Optional: 1/2c dashi stock w/ 2 tbsp soy sauce

Method:
1. Mix together the mirin, sake, and 2 tbsp soy sauce.
2. Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the canola oil and onions. Stir fry until somewhat soft.
3. Add the thinly sliced beef and brown. Then add the ginger and mirin/sake/soy sauce mix (plus the dashi stock if you made it). Simmer until most of the sauce is gone.
4. Serve over hot rice, garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.

Short post today again, sorry! Just got back in yesterday from Santa Barbara (More on this next week! Vacation was a blast!) and I’m still trying to get life sorted out (Backed up work, a broken HVAC, and warping floorboards will do that to you).

But anyway, a few weeks back I ended up in a Japanese one-bowl/bento lunch kick and found a couple recipes on No Recipes that did the trick! And with a little bit of experimentation, they came out great! Mostly it was a few changes in the amount of spice in the dish and then trying to see what a little bit of dashi would do as well. Hopefully I didn’t ruin the authenticity of the dish too much!

Soboro don

Time: 15 minutes
Serves : 3 – 4

Recipe adapted from Marc at No Recipes

Ingredients:
- 1 lb ground chicken, dark meat
- 1/2 tsp ginger, grated
- 2 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp mirin
- 3 scallions
- 2 eggs

- 1/2c dashi broth
- 4 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tb sugar
- 1 tsp gochujang chili paste

Method:
1. Add 1 tbsp canola oil to a frying pan over medium high heat. Add in the ginger and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add in the chicken and use a spatula to break apart the chunks.
2. When the chicken is just done, add in the mirin and sugar. Stir well to coat and then add in the dashi broth, soy sauce, sugar, and gochujang mix. Cook until the liquid is mostly gone.
3. Fill a bowl with hot rice, top with scallions and scoop in some chicken and sauce. Top with a fried egg and serve.

I was out grocery shopping with a friend the other day and while picking out some fish, she tried steering me towards buying a whole Cod. A whole 5+ pound Cod. I mean, I probably could figure out a way to use it all but I wasn’t having any of it at the time. And that also went with the quarter-cow that came up later. I don’t think I need 30 pounds of beef either. Really =P

I did end up getting some nice cod fillets though. And not being content to just add salt/pepper/olive oil and bake, I sallied forth to the vast land known only as the “Internet” hunting for recipes. Most had some fancy glaze or mango salsa, of which I didn’t have any of the ingredients for (I do want to try out the mango salsa sometime, though I wonder if the sweetness would be overwhelming), but eventually I found a pretty nice recipe on Dash of Food, realized it was very similar to something else I’ve done with fish, and was inspired.

I made up some teriyaki sauce and added in a few of the ingredients from the Dash of Food recipe and I was ready to go. I ended up pan-frying the Cod but I think next time I’ll bake it in the oven and glaze the Cod afterwards, makes for less cleaning and I like baked Cod anyway. Also blanched some fresh Yu Choy I picked up from Russo’s and served the cod over some soba noodles. It ended up being one of the healthiest meals I’ve had in weeks, balancing out an incredibly unhealthy meal just 2 days before…

Pan-seared Cod with Ginger Soy glaze

Time : 15 minutes
Serves : 4

Ingredients:
– 24oz Cod fillets, cut into 4 pieces
– 3 tsp soy sauce
– 3 tsp mirin
– 2 tsp sake
– 1 tsp sugar
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
– 2 cloves minced garlic
– 1/2 piece ginger, minced
– 1 tsp corn starch
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted

Method:
1. Mix together the sauces from the soy sauce through the sesame oil. Add to a small saucepan and let simmer to thicken.
2. Lightly oil the cod and pan-fry or bake in the oven. Pan-frying should take 4-5 minutes on each side on medium heat while baking probably will run 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Plate the fish with side dishes of your choice and then spoon the glaze over top.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made Teriyaki sauce but surprisingly (after leafing through my notes), I’d never made Chicken Teriyaki before. Boggles my mind actually, I could only find notes on making Salmon Teriyaki over the past 2-3 years.

So here it is. I ended up slicing a full chicken breast in half and then pounding the halves flat prior to marinating overnight. I also used grated ginger instead of ginger powder this time, which I think works out better too. It’s not in the picture here, but I’ve also cooked up an egg for one of the leftover meals, it works pretty well too!

One more thing, I did end up making Japanese sushi rice to go with the chicken. It’s just some mirin, rice vinegar and sugar mixed together and added to cooked Japanese short-grain rice.

Chicken Teriyaki

Time : 20 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 lb Chicken Breast, halved, pounded thin
1 Onion, sliced
Broccoli Florets
Sesame seeds, for garnish

Marinade:
3 tbsp Light soy sauce
3 tbsp Mirin
2 tbsp Sake
2 tsp sugar
A little grated ginger
Dash of garlic powder

Method:
1. Marinate Chicken breasts overnight.
2. Add reserved marinade and onion to a frying pan, saute for a few minutes.
3. Add chicken to pan and cook undisturbed for a couple minutes.
4. In the meanwhile, boil the broccoli florets for 2 minutes.
5. Stir-fry chicken and onions for another couple minutes.
6. Serve over rice.

For the record, I met my October goals and successfully lost 6 pounds. Funny though, I don’t think I really changed my eating habits all that much (well, except for maybe eating out only 1-2 times a week instead of 4-5). I have been eating more chicken lately and cutting out some of the carbs (Crazy how much rice I sometimes use with a meal). But I think it has to do more with the exercise. After all, if you work it all off, you should be able to eat everything you want right?

I’ve also been accumulating cookbooks lately, trying to find a couple cookbooks that “define” a particular cuisine. Two of the most recent have been Japanese cookbooks, one of the Asian cuisines I’m not very familiar with, except for maybe a few things I’ve tried on my own like Katsu or Teriyaki. One cook I’ve read a lot about is Harumi Kurihara, one of the most renowned writers in Japanese cooking. She’s likened as the Japanese Martha Stewart and has just started releasing cookbooks in English! I picked up Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking, trying to pick a cookbook that had a more homestyle feel to it.

Today’s recipe is the first one I’ve tried out of this cookbook and probably the easiest one too. It’s a quick chicken marinade with a little bit of extra sesame oil for flavor and can be paired with any medley of vegetables, I chose to slice up and stir-fry some bok choy.

Pari Pari Style Chicken

Serves 4
Time : 30 minutes active time (overnight marination)

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 lb Chicken Thighs (boneless, skin better for marinating)
- 1 tbsp Dry sherry
- 1 tbsp Light Soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Couple grinds of white pepper
- 2 tbsp Sesame oil for brushing on chicken
- Worcestershire sauce on the side

Method:
1. Mix together the chicken with everything but the 2 tbsp Sesame oil and worcestershire sauce. Marinade at least 15 minutes but overnight would be the best.
2. Bake chicken at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes.
3. Brush the extra sesame oil on the chicken and then bake another 10 minutes or so.
4. Serve over rice with some worcestershire sauce on the side and some vegetables.

Everytime I’m in a Japanese restaurant, I absolutely crave this stuff. Really. I get it every time…provided they have it. And if they don’t, I ask. Trust me, I’ve embarrassed myself a couple time doing this already =P

But anyway, I’ve never figured out how to make it. And lacking good resources online and in the two cookbooks I have, I was forced to improvise. And if you know me, that’s never a good thing ; I’m no good at balancing ingredients together. So off I went, with the bare minimum of ingredients, hoping for the best.

And wow, it actually turned out alright! A bit spicy, which was great but it definitely had evidence of the flavor I crave. I bet there’s more mayo but I can’t bring myself to use more than I have already.

Hotate Hokkaiyaki

Serves 4 as an appetizer
Time : 20 minutes

Ingredients:
- 6 Sea Scallops, sliced
- 12-18 Crab Sticks (Kani) – Pulled apart
- 4 tbsp Flying Fish Roe
- 6 tbsp Japanese Mayo
- Generous squeeze Sriracha
- Optional : Sliced up Enoki mushrooms

Method:
1. Mix everything but the scallops together in a bowl. Taste and adjust flavor as necessary.
2. Add scallops, mix again, then set in a bakeable dish.
3. Bake for 10 minutes at 475 or until done.

But sometimes I’m a little lazy to travel across the river to get to Cafe Mami so I tried my hand at making it myself. I do use the boxed curry though, I’ve read through the ingredients on how to make curry paste and decided it wasn’t for me (probably to the chagrin of many). I also add onions, carrots, and potatoes, to make it a heartier stew-like meal. Boiling the carrots and potatoes in advance does help too, as it lessens the amount of time to simmer the curry.

I used to make this without cheese but after reading a couple other blogs and getting some testimony, I added the mozzarella and it does actually add a lot of taste!

Chicken Katsu Curry

Serves 4-6
Time : 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:
- 4-6 chicken breasts, pounded thin
- 2-3 eggs, beaten
- ½ cup flour
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs

- 1 box S&B Hot curry
- 15-20 baby carrots, chopped
- 1 medium onion chopped
- Optional (A couple boiled potatoes, chopped)
- 3.5 cups water (or stock)
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

- Eggs for afterwards
- Some mozzarella cheese

Method:
1. Dredge chicken in flour, eggs, then bread crumbs (Can do twice if you like)
2. Bake or pan fry chicken (bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 or pan fry for 5-10 minutes), set aside
3. Heat a sauté pan under medium, add a little canola oil, add garlic. Stir fry for 30 seconds until fragrant, add onions and carrots.
4. Stir fry vegetables for 3-4 minutes, then add water/stock. Stir in the curry mix and add boiled potatoes (if you have them)
5. Simmer for 45 minutes until potatoes and carrots are soft
6. Serve chicken over rice. Add some mozzarella cheese on top and pour curry over. Top with a fried egg if you like.

Notes:
- Can substitute the baked chicken (with eggs, flour, bread crumbs) with chopped beef chuck. Add the beef after the garlic in this case.

The pork katsu-don always seemed like something that I could try my hand at making but my previous attempts weren’t so great (read : failures). I never could get the sauce right, either it ended up too salty or just plain flavorless.

But then my roommate cooked it up once using a couple recipes and it tasted great, so I had to try one more time. I grabbed the recipes he used and then compared them to a couple other I found online and came up with the version I’m posting today. (This is the version I closely modeled : mmm-yoso)

Anyway, on to the food!

Pork Katsu-don

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

Sauce
3 tbsp sake (or other rice wine or sherry)
3 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp mirin
5 tbsp soy sauce
3/4 cup water
1/3 tsp Dashi

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.