Chicken Katsu and Pepper Beef Don

Chicken Katsu Don

I have a thing for Japanese rice. Though the price can be quite dissuasive at times. But I have half a bag of very good and very expensive Hokkaido rice left (from a Japanese curry and sushi-making experiment a year ago) and have been fearing that if I didn't do anything about it soon the rice bugs will join the spiders and scorpions in the house.

But of course expensive Japanese rice doesn't grow bugs. Should have known. All the better since it's no-rinse rice and I don't intend to rinse it if it says that I don't have to do so on the packet. Never one for extra work if I can help it.

And what to go with the rice? I don't eat sushi and I don't really fancy sweet Jap curry. Then I remembered that I had 2 breaded chicken cutlets (fresh from the butcher) and a few beef controfiletos. So voilà just had to make my own Tonkatsu sauce and we could all have Chicken Katsu and Pepper Beef Don for lunch!

Tonkatsu Sauce :

80ml (or 1 Avent baby bottle cover) Ketchup

40ml Worcestershire Sauce

20ml Japanese Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp ground Ginger

1 clove diced Garlic

40ml Sake (I used white wine)
20g Sugar

20ml Mirin (I used Sherry with honey)

Basically just bring everything to a boil and then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

I served the rice in a bowl, arranged a sunny-side-up egg on it, some shredded iceberg cabbage, chicken katsu, some beef (just grilled very quickly on a very hot grill with crushed black pepper and coarse sea salt), some of the Tonkatsu sauce, a slice of lemon and a sprinkling of grilled white sesame seeds and that's a one-dish meal.

On the Japanese food theme, I finally had a quick meal just before my movie at Umami-An in Paris (recommended by Umami) and it was as she said, umami :-). It's a really small restaurant in a street off the Champs Elysées run by real Japanese and the clients when we were there were also all Japanese.

Grilled ScallopsTempura Prawn Udon Soup

Hubby and I shared some grilled Scallops to start and they were really tasty, cooked to perfection, simple yet so delicious. Then we each had a bowl of Tempura Prawn Udon Soup and the broth was nice and delicate, the udon fine and not fat and starchy like the ones served in most Chinese-run Japanese restaurants. Wish we had the time to try their other dishes, they all sounded really interesting (they don't do raw food which suits me real fine), especially the Green Tea Crème Brûlée. Well, maybe the next time.

Umami-An

27 rue Colisée

75008 Paris

Tel : 01 45 61 09 79