Katsudon

I apologize for the delay in post. I took a brief hiatus from full-time 'blog' activities to explore the California wilderness with two hippies (post to follow!).

Before this 'outdoors' adventure, I cooked up leftover tonkatsu to make a post-katsu treat. Leftover tonkatsu kind of sucks. No matter how it is stored or reheated, bringing back that fresh crisp is pretty impossible. Katsudon is the perfect solution.

Ingredients:
-Leftover tonkatsu (I had two big pieces - about half of what I started with, and enough for a serving that made me uncomfortably full for 2-3 hours)

-1/2 onion, sliced.. not diced
-1/2 cup dashi
- 2 1/2 tbsp soy
-1 tbsp mirin
-1 tbsp sugar
-2 eggs

-steamed, short grain, white rice (about half a cup)

For the meat:
I reheated/attempted to crisp in the oven with a low broil for about 10 minutes. I would have used a toaster oven, but don't own one so... oven it was!

For the sauce:
In a medium saute pan I combine the dashi, soy, mirin, sugar and onion, medium-ish simmer till the onion is nice and soft. I don't add salt because 1) I'm pretty sure the dashi I use already has salt in it and 2) I think it's fine without any.

sauce...

Put it all together...:
I drop the re-crisped meat into the sauce for a couple minutes (covered), then pour the lightly beaten eggs in, cover for another couple minutes, and haul it all over the rice. I had a large excess of sauce this time (I think the recipe above can be used for about 4 times the amount of katsu I was working with, but I was eating alone).

meat in sauce..

huevos/eggs/tamago have been dropped

I serve it with some greens (spinach because that's what I had). Ideally there would be some scallions involved somewhere in there, and maybe some peas as well. Katsudon is a blank canvas - add what you will. Oh, and I serve it with some pickled ginger strips because A) it's delicious B) they did it in Japan and 3) that's how I like it.

finished product, take 1... something's missing...

Note on the sauce: Either because of the quantity I ate or the fact that I didn't really measure any of the ingredients in the sauce, it turned out to be a pretty intense sauce experience. A little less sugar maybe? I don't know. It was good and I'm pretty sure I just ate too much.

aha! 100 times more authentic