Katsudon

First of all, I would like to thank the 1000+ people who have visited my food blog! Knowing my blog has been visited by so many people makes me very happy. Thank you!

Here is a recipe to celebrate! It's very simple, but I read online that Katsudon is usually eaten before a big test as "katsu" is a homophone of the verb 勝つ katsu, meaning "to win" or "to be victorious". And well, I don't have any tests or anything (my 1st term in senior year of college has just ended actually), but I hope to continue to feel victorious in the sense that people will continue to visit my blog.

Anyway, enough of me blabbing! Here is the recipe for one serving of Katsudon:

Ingredients:
1 Tonkatsu cooked and ready! A chicken fillet can also be used as substitute instead of pork (chicken katsu is called Torikatsu, if I'm not mistaken).
1 egg
1/4 leek sliced diagonally
1/2 onion sliced
50ml water
1/5 tsp powdered dashi (I use Ajinomoto brand dashi found in most Japanese sections of the grocery. Market Market in the Fort has many varieties of powdered dashi)
1 tbsp kikkoman soysauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tsp brown sugar
1.5 cup of rice put in a rice bowl big enough to fit your Tonkatsu

Directions:

1. Mix water, dashi, soysauce, mirin, and brown sugar and put in heated pan
2. When mixture begins to be hot, add onion
3. When the mixture is boiling and onion has begun to be transluscent, add your Tonkatsu
4. Beat egg lightly and pour over mixture and tonkatsu
5. Put some of the leeks on the Tonkatsu
6. Cover the pan for about a minute, or until your egg has reached your desired consistency.
7. Slide everything onto a bowl of rice.
8. Serve and eat while hot! :)

*Thanks to the Cooking with Dog show for some tips!

The Meatlover's Pizza Sandwich

Ok, so I haven't been posting much recently. I've just been so busy! Anyway today I was craving for a slice of pizza, but we didn't have any at home and I didn't have enough money to buy, so I decided to just make something kind of like a pizza. I call it, the Pizza Meatlovers Sandwich! Now the picture doesn't look so appetizing; I just used a 2 megapixel camera phone since my DSLR's with my brother, but trust me, it is reeaaal good.


Ingredients:
2 slices of bread (regular sandwich bread is fine, cibatta is better)
Ketchup (regular flavor. NO Tamis-Anghang or Banana ketchup for this)
Ground black pepper
Basil (can either be fresh or dried)
Quickmelt cheese and or mozarella
Feta/white cheese in herbed olive oil (optional)
1 Green olive (optional)
2-3 slices spiced Ham
1 and a half big strip of Bacon
1/4 of onion

Directions:

1. Spread ketchup on one side of both bread slices (don't be frugal, but don't put too much that the bread will get soggy)
2. On one bread slice, put lots of slices of your cheese, crumble about two-three small feta cubes, and put about half a teaspoon of the herbed olive oil over it.
3. Slice the onion and green olive and put these on the same side of the bread as the cheese/s and ketchup
4. Add a pinch of pepper
5. And add, if using fresh basil, slices of 1 leaf. If using dried basil, just a dash
6. Fry the spiced ham until it begins to brown
7. Fry the bacon until the meat is reddish brown and the edges crispy
8. Add on the meat on the bread
9. Cover with the remaining slice
10. Grill sandwich in a sandwich griller until bread has browned with grill marks, and cheese has melted. *
11. ENJOY! :)
    

To make it meatier, feel free to add sauteed ground pork or beef, pepperoni, or whatever your favorite meat is! Just remember not to use too many salty types of meat or else the pizza sandwich will become too salty.

*If you do not have a sandwich griller, I guess you can use the oven toaster and toast the sanwich for about 5 minutes.

"Brich": The ultimate breakfast sandwich

Inspired by a similar concept my friends and I tasted in Baguio, I decided to make my own, smaller version of it. I call it the "Brich" which is short for breakfast sandwich. It's basically a sandwich made up of my favorite breakfast foods.

For bread, I used pancakes (which I made just by following the instructions on the box) which I spread some butter on. In between the 2 pancakes, I just put some ham, salami, bacon, scrambled egg, lettuce, and cheese (just the plain square cheese slices available in supermarkets --I like Anchor brand the best). I spread butter on the top pancake and poured some maple/pancake syrup on the whole thing. I would've put cornflakes and maybe even some peanut butter or jam, but when I made it I was just going to eat it as a snunch, so I didn't want it to be waaay too rich. I mean, it's rich and heavy enough already.

The brich goes well with a glass of milk, water, or orange juice. Although I recommend water because I think the brich already seems fattening, and extra sugar won't be needed haha

Korean Beef Stew

Ingredients:
beef short ribs or the beef part used in kaldereta, cut about 2 inches thick
2 carrots peeled and chopped into half moons
1 onion
garlic
2/3 soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
1/2 cup water
about a tsp of ginger
about a tsp of sesame seeds
sesame oil
4 tbsp sugar
salt and pepper to season
Chili peppers

directions:
1. Boil beef until soft (about 15 minutes)
2. While waiting, mix the soy sauce, mirin, water, ginger, crushed garlic, a dash of sesame oil, sugar, chili pepper
3. Take the beef out of the boiling water
4. Sautee onions and carrots and then after a while, sear meat
5. Lower heat and add mixture
6. Simmer until meat is very tender (around 20 minutes)
7. Before it is done, add some sesame seeds and mix it in the pan.
6. Serve!

Kimchi Fried Rice

I first encountered Kimchi Fried Rice at Kaya Restaurant. It's great with flavorful dishes because the spice in the rice can balance it out, and it's actually really easy to make!

Ingredients:
1 small bottle kimchi
2-3 cups of rice
2 eggs

Directions:
1. Heat some oil in a frying pan or a wok
2. Sautee some of the vegetables from the kimchi bottle
3. Add rice, mix together in pan
4. After a few minutes, pour in the remaining kimchi juice
5. Mix until it is not too wet
6. Crack the eggs onto the rice and mix until cooked together

Voila! :D

Tuna Croquettes

I may have designed it too look like a small crab (or atleast tried to haha), but the picture is actually of tuna croquettes. Croquettes are very easy to make, and you can pretty much fill it with any meat or vegetable you like. I actually wanted to put some chicken and mushrooms in this one, but I got too lazy so I used tuna instead! Here's what you need to make about 4-5 croquettes:

Ingredients:
1 can of 150g tuna flakes (i prefer hot and spicy century tuna)
1.5 really big potato
1/4 of a carrot, diced into small cubes
1 onion finely chopped
Panko
Flour
2 eggs (1 beaten)
Salt and pepper

Directions:
1. First boil the potato (need not be peeled)
2. When the potato is boiled, mash it and add a tsp of pepper and a pinch of salt
3. Break an egg into it and mash together
4. Let the mashed potato cool.
5. While the potato is cooling, prepare tuna, carrots, and onion.
6. Sautee carrots and onion using about 2 tbsps of the oil from the can of tuna
7. Throw out the rest of the oil or save it for some other dish.
8. When the carrots begin to soften and the onion begins caramelizing, add the tuna flakes
9. As they cook together, break the flakes into smaller pieces
10. Saute for about 5 minutes until the tuna, carrots, and onions are no longer so wet
11. Mix have of the contents of your pan with the mashed potato.
12. Roll mashed potato into a small ball the size of your palm. As you do this add a bit more tuna+carrot+onion in the ball and roll again. Repeat process until there is no tuna and mashed potato left.
13. Dredge the balls in the flour, dip in the beaten egg, and then coat with panko. Repeat till all balls are coated.
14. Put oil in a pan, about an an inch thick.
15. When it is hot enough (you will find out if you put a bit of panko in the oil and it sizzles and floats), fry one side of a potato ball.
16. As it fries, press it down with the spatula so that it kind of looks like a little 1 inch pancake.
17. When the bottom part is brown and crispy, flip the potato.. well now it's a flat-ish circle haha
18. Repeat until all the balls are done!
19. Serve either with tartar sauce/mayonaisse or Tonkatsu sauce! :D

! Warning Do NOT try to make the croquette too big, unless you have some kind of cool cooking device or if maybe you're using a deep fryer, because it will BREAK.

Tonkatsu

Hi guys! It's been a while since my last update; I've been enjoying my summer vacation way too much! I hope you enjoy this post though, it's a recipe on how to make Tonkatsu.

Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish; "ton" meaning pork, and "katsu" for cutlet. It's one of the easiest dishes to make and here is how:

Ingredients:
Pork cutlets or pork chops de-boned
Flour
Beaten egg
Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) with a pinch of salt and pepper
Salt and Pepper
Tonkatsu sauce*

Directions:

1. Season the pork cutlets with salt and pepper
2. Put the flour, beaten egg, and panko in separate bowls
3. Coat the pork cutlets by dipping it into the flour, egg, and panko (in that order)
4. Heat some oil in a fryer to medium high heat (you'll know it's hot enough when you put some panko in, it floats to the surface, and makes a slight sizzling sound)
5. Fry both sides of the pork until it is golden brown
6. Cut each cutlet into about an inch thick strips (as seen in the photo)
   

! Remember not to get the oil TOO hot (smoking) because you'll burn the panko and the pork will either get burned too or won't be cooked thoroughly. You can do this by lowering the heat to medium when you notice that the pork is almost done.

*Tonkatsu sauce - my favorite tonkatsu sauce is the Bulldog brand. It can be bought in most supermarkets in the Japanese food section or Asian groceries. You can also make your own by mixing the following:
Ketchup, Worcestire sauce (ratio 2:1),
a pinch of sugar,
and a pinch of chili garlic (more if you like it sweeter or spicier)