Tori Katsu-don

One big advantage of cooking your own food at home is that you get to choose from a wide variety of exotic things to eat, particularly here, in a foreign country, where choices of restaurants can be quite limited. So today, I present you with tori katsu-don, which comes all the way from ... where else, but Japan? :)

"Tori katsu", translated to English, is chicken cutlets, and "don" is basically a dish served over rice. Here, chicken is delicately seasoned and fried in Japanese breadcrumbs, then served with a delicious egg broth(you can just about see the creamy golden egg in the picture!) and rice! So, here we go!

What you need:
3 boneless skinless chicken pieces (I used drumsticks)
Salt and black pepper, for seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
3 tablespoons flour
1 egg, beaten
1 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)

Broth:
1 cup dashi stock (I used 1 cup water with 1 teaspoon dashi seasoning)
4 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs, beaten (I used 2 eggs, plus left-over egg from the chicken)

What you do:

1. Season the chicken well with salt and pepper, and add the garlic powder and oyster sauce. Marinate for at least 15 minutes if you have time.
2. Dust the chicken with flour, dip into the egg, then the panko crumbs.
3. Fry in oil until golden-brown - about 4 minutes per side. Drain and keep warm.
4. Mix broth ingredients except egg in a sauce pan, and bring to boil. Carefully pour in the eggs, and stir gently. so that the eggs do not solidify into one solid mass, but form a lovely creamy pattern. (heh. my own words, but hard to describe :P).
5. Cut the chicken into 1-inch strips, and arrange carefully over a bowl of white rice. You can pour the broth over the chicken, on the side or as a dip.

The main thing that surprised me was at how little time this dish took! Because the chicken pieces are flat and boneless, they don't take long to cook at all, and the broth barely took any time as well. If you have a large frying pan, you might even be able to finish cooking everything (except the marination, but you can skip that out, maybe) in 15 minutes! Rice takes longer to cook, hehe. I had a small-ish wok (and didn't want to use too much oil), but I still took less than half an hour. Impressive, very impressive. The dish, also, is very impressive, if I do say so myself, hehe. The boys were worried at how much it must've cost, when in reality, it was probably less than 75 pence per person! Just perfect for our student budgets (and our busy student lives, hehe).

I actually modelled this after a dish in Excapades Sushi in Brunei, Tori Katsu. Some of my cousins are big fans of dish, and I must say, the chicken is quite okay when hot, but once it cools down a bit, you can tell that it actually tastes a bit bland. (Their Tori Katsu Maki Special, however, is just amazing.) So I decided to marinate the chicken before hand. Also, I KNEW it wouldn't be enough for Justin and Hadi, so I decided to look around for a side dish. That's when I came across a tori katsu recipe simmered in a broth, which seemed quite similar to oyako-don. I wanted to keep the crispiness of the chicken, however, so I decided to serve it on the side instead.

As for the taste, sure enough, the broth was very similar to Oyako-don, which I've made before. The chicken was also very flavoursome (nicely marinated, hehe) and the breadcrumbs gave a special flavour to it. Hadi, in fact, said that it had an authentic Japanese taste (though he's never been to Japan, heh - must be the dashi and soy sauce) and is reminiscent of Excapades. Justin really liked it as well, he poured a whole load of the broth onto his rice and really liked the chicken. I would recommend you either pour the broth over your rice (like the boys did) or use it as a dip or soup. Pouring it over the chicken makes it lose its crispiness. :(

If you don't have (or don't want to use) dashi, which is a Japanese fish stock, substitute with chicken stock instead. It has a unique flavour, that not everyone might agree with, hehe. Also, marinate the chicken with your favorite combinations. :) Just make sure it goes with soy sauce. ;)

Quote of the day: In Mexico we have a word for sushi - bait.