Jul152011

Katsudon – Pork Cutlet Rice Bowl

Katsudon – Pork Cutlet Rice Bowl

Katsudon means pork cutlet rice bowl (I don’t know for sure, don’t quote me) and is a popular Japanese dish. Mike gets them at a little shop close to his work, and asked me last week if I’d find a recipe for it.

All the ingredients were easy to find (in fact, the only thing I had to pick up was a new bottle of rice wine vinegar), but it was the combination that threw me a bit: fried panko-crusted pork chops that are cooked in a sweet sauce with eggs over rice. My first thought? Weird. But I’ll try anything once.

Katsudon – Pork Cutlet Rice Bowl

Of course, they were delicious. How could anything that looks like that not be? My pork cutlets actually started out as one-inch thick chops. Instead of spending ten minutes trying to pound them each out, I butterflied them and then gave them each a quick once-over with the mallet.

Katsudon – Pork Cutlet Rice Bowl

Once it’s done cooking you cut the pork into thin strips and put it in yet another pan with the warmed sauce. After letting the pork absorb the sauce for a minute you add a beaten egg and stir the whole thing around for a bit, and then serve over rice.

This was quite a production for five people but once I got the routine down I had dinner ready in about 45 minutes.

I used this recipe, but next time I’m going to add some sliced onion to the sauce since Mike says that’s how they serve it at the shop. I also didn’t use an inch of oil for frying (more like a few tablespoons), and we didn’t add peas (though that would be really good).

Katsudon – Pork Cutlet Rice Bowl
I’m awesome with rice.