Oh hey, look, a not-dessert. Fulfilling the category of “I swear I don’t just make desserts”, I made a meal this week– katsudon, using this recipe from the blog, Woks of Life. Katsudon was always on my bucket list for things I wanted to try making and I was glad that I finally got the chance to do so.

For a team meeting dinner, I wanted to try making this but eventually had to switch trajectory to making baked katsu curry since I had no idea how to scale a recipe like this for 30 people. Luckily, house dinner provided me with an outlet to try it.

One thing that surprises me is that I don’t see this on many menus at Japanese restaurants that I’ve went to. I usually see “katsu curry”, “chicken katsu plate”, “katsu sando”, or “oyakodon” but never “katsudon.” Not really sure why.

Making this recipe was relatively straightforward. To feed five people, I used six thin pork loin chops (~1.7 lbs) + one thick pork boneless chop (~0.8 lb). Because the first six chops were already 1 cm thick, I didn’t have to tenderize/pound it to an appropriate thickness. However, the thick pork boneless chop was at least 2″ thick. Since I was too lazy to get a rolling pin to start pounding at it, I elected to just punch the pork chop to its appropriate thickness with my fists.

Yeah, I punched a pork chop.

After seasoning the meat with salt + pepper + togarashi (add this, it makes katsu taste so much better), flouring it, soaking it an egg, and breading it, I got to frying it. The katsu actually cooked fairly quickly, about ~ 4 min per side. However, one thing I noticed was that the outside edges browned faster than the center so when I flipped sides, I noticed that the outer edge was brown with a golden center. To brown each side equally, I had to press down the center of the chop to make sure it was contacting the oil. Unsurprisingly, the pork chop, that I had to punch to appropriate thickness, took the longest to cook, around closer to ~7-8 min per side. To prevent scorching the breadcrumbs, I had to lower the heat.

In hindsight, I probably should have switched up the oil. As I had to fry the katsu in batches, the frying oil got more and more dirty as it contained fallen breadcrumbs, some of which ended up being fried alongside with the katsu, giving it an even darker brown or scorched look. Nevertheless, the katsu was successfully cooked with some on the verge of being overcooked/fried.

After frying up the onions, boiling them in the dashi/soy sauce/mirin stock, I cut the katsu into pieces and placed them on top of the bed of stock-soaked onions, then added beaten egg on top.

So it tasted good. Unsurprisingly, I liked it. Katsu. Egg. Rice. You really can’t go wrong with that. I would make this again, maybe with baked katsu so I don’t have to fry in batches. I’m actually proud of this one.

I was also able to make the pear arugula salad that I’ve made in the past as an obligatory vegetable side. Overall, I’m really happy with this dinner.