Vera's Cookbook: A Simple Japanese Home Cooking

There were several best choices for lunch when I worked in Midtown, NYC. One of them is Katsu Hama (www.katsuhama.com), where you can enjoy assorted small Japanese dishes and many different katsu (deep fried panko breaded proteins): pork katsu, chicken katsu, katsu with curry sauce, and a lot more.

One of my favorite is katsu don (カツ丼), katsu with egg over rice. It is very simple dish but really satisfying and delicious. The sweetness & saltiness (or umami(うま味) flavor... so called) from dashi, mirin, soy sauce, mushroom and onions, and soft texture from the egg and dashi soaked katsu and rice.

To make katsu don (in this case, chicken katsu don), you will need dashi (出汁), a most widely used Japanese broth, which is very useful to have in your fridge to make any Japanese dish, as much useful as chicken stock in American cuisine. I will start with dashi recipe adopted from chef Yoshihiro Murata's book.

This is the first Japanese dish posted in Vera's Cookbook. A great example of simple Japanese home cooking. :)

Chicken Katsu Don (チキンカツ丼)

(Yield: 4 servings / Cooking time: 30 min*)
* 30 minutes does not include dashi cooking time 1 hour.

Ingredients:
Dashi (出汁)
+ 15g kombu
+ 25g dried bonito flakes
+ 4 cups of water

Chicken katsu
+ 4 organic free range chicken breasts
+ panko bread crumbs
+ flour (ideally, Wondra flour*)
+ 1 egg
+ neutral oil for pan frying (canola oil, peanut oil, or grapeseed oil)
+ salt and pepper

* Wondra flour is actually a brand name of a instant flour but used as a generic noun usually. The flour is in low protein and makes a light and crispy crust when you use it for frying. I use Wondra flour for pan fried fish mostly.

Katsu Don sauce
+ 2 cups of dashi
+ 2 Tbsp mirin (or sweet white wine)
+ 2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

Katsu Don topping
+ 2 small onions or one regular onion, sliced thinly
+ 1 scallion (white and pale green part), sliced in bias
+ 1 king oyster mushroom, sliced thinly (length-wise)
+ 4 eggs

Before prep

After prep

Oh! and you will need four bowls of rice.

Procedures:

Dashi (出汁)
The following recipe is mainly adopted from the cookbook "Kaiseki, The Exquisite Cuisne of Kyoto's Kikunoi Restaurant by Yoshihiro Murata, Kodansha International, 2006 ".

Traditionally, dashi is made by boiling kombu with water for 30 minutes and adding bonito flake. However, according to chef Yoshihiro Murata, the glutamic acid in kombu, which gives the flavor to dashi, cannot be extracted above 176°F (80°C)... which means, 212°F (100°C) boiling water doesn't help to extract the flavor from kombu. Interesting! And indeed I found the chef Yoshihiro Murata's way is much better.

1. Wipe the dried kombu with wet towel.
2. Add the kombu to cold water and let it hydrate for 15 minutes.

3. Bring the water to simmer... very very low mere simmer. The cookbook says 140°F (60°C)... but with your stove, it might be hard to control the temperature so low and consistant. I tried not to go over 160°F (70°C). Simmer for an hour.

4. Take the kombu out and raise the temperature to 176°F (80°C), mere simmer. Turn off the heat and add dried bonito flakes immediately. Let the bonito flakes seat in the water for 5 minutes.

5. Strain the bonito with fine strainer. Do not squeeze the bonito flakes but just let the liquid drain naturally. The liquid is your dashi.

6. Cool down the dashi and store in a fridge for later uses.

Chicken Katsu
1. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper.

2. Prepare basic breading station, in an order of flour - egg - panko bread crumbs.

3. First coat the seasoned chicken breast with flour. Shake off any excess. Then dip it into the beaten egg, shaking off any excess. Finally, dip it into the panko bread crumbs.

4. Heat the oil in a deep pan to 320-330°F (160-165°C).

5. Gently place the breaded chicken breast in the heated oil. Fry until the bottom side is golden brown, about 2 minutes.

6. Filp the breast and cook the other side as well until the color is golden brown.

7. Drain the chicken katsu over a wired rack for 7-8 minutes.

8. Slice the chicken katsu in about a half-inch thickness.

Chicken Katsu Don
1. Mix dashi, mirin, soy sauce together. This is your katsu don sauce.

2. Pour quarter of katsu don sauce and add quarter of sliced onions in a small pan. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid to half.