Tasty Chicken Katsu Served Hawaiian Style!

Aloha! As the temperature rises in Los Angeles, we are sitting (frying) at home dreaming of the perfect fantasy getaway–HAWAII! Ah! What’s not to love about beautiful Hawaii? Its lovely beaches, fantastic shopping, and of course, the SCRUMPTIOUS food. We both miss it so! SOOO, this past weekend, we decided to bring ourselves back to the Aloha land by trying our hands at making a typical Hawaiian Plate Lunch. For those of you unfamiliar to Hawaiian cuisine…it is time to get familiar! 🙂 Hawaiian food is very unique in that the cuisine is truly a melting pot..a fusion..a fantastic blend of Asian food (Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese, etc) and American food with the occasional island twist. A Plate Lunch usually consists of a couple scoops of rice, a meat dish (teriyaki, korean bbq, katsu, etc), and a side of Macaroni salad. Yummy, eh?

Today, we will show you how to make chicken katsu (chicken instead of pork is more often seen in Hawaiian cuisine) and a simple macaroni salad. We served it with another side of finely sliced cabbage with dressing, and wala~a tasty meal at home for the weekend (for us, it will be for the whole week). 🙂 We will end this entry with something that will leave you wanting more! Read on to find out!

I. Chicken Katsu

What You Need

• Chicken Boneless skinless thigh
• Panko Crumbs
• Egg
• Flour
• Salt and Pepper
• Oil for frying

What to Do:

First clean the chicken and pat dry. Next in a shallow bowl, crack the egg and break the egg yolk up. Add in 2 tsp of water, salt and pepper for flavor. After that, pour flour in a different shallow bowl. Add in salt and pepper. Lastly get a third shallow dish and pour in the Panko Crumbs. You are going to end up with a three bowls:

Ok, so we are going to 1) dip the chicken in the flour, 2) Dip in egg mixture, 3) Coat with plenty of panko crumbs. Ready? Let’s go!

One…

Two…

and Three…

Not too bad, right? Next, put in a good amount of oil for frying in a large deep pan and heat it up. While that is heating up, coat the rest of the chicken pieces.

Once the pan is ready to fry, add in the chicken one by one. Fry until the bottom has turned a nice golden brown color. Then, with a good pair of tongs, flip it over, and continue to fry until the entire piece has turned golden brown..probably about 3-5 minutes. Once they are done, put them on a paper lined plate to drain excess oil.

You are done! You can slice this up to serve with katsu sauce. You can purchase this sauce at any local Asian market. In the case that you do not have time or if the store has run out (like ours), you can try your hand at making your own sauce:

You will Need: Ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce, Brown Sugar, Salt

Mix in about 2 tablespoons of Ketchup with 1&1/2 – 2 tablespoons of W. sauce. Add in 1 tsp of salt and about 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar. You can play with this recipe and add in soy sauce, mustard, hot sauce etc. Up to you! Feel free to play around with the amounts as well. We added in sesame seeds for a kick.

Now that the main part is done, here is the recipe for a classic macaroni salad served in a Hawaiian plate lunch:

II. Macaroni Salad

What You Need:

• Elbow Macaroni
• 1 carrot
• 1/4 cup onion
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup mayo
• salt & pepper

What to Do:

First boil the macaroni with a little bit of salted water. Then rinse under cold water and drain.

Next thinly slice the carrot and onion. It would be good if you had a grater to cut these veggies. We want it that thin. If you do not like the onion flavor, feel free to take it out. If you like it, feel free it add more to it.

Next in a separate bowl, mix in the mayo, milk, salt and pepper to taste.

Mix everything together. Leave in fridge until ready to serve.

We are done! Now, all we need to do is plate the dish: Two scoops of rice, 1 scoop of macaroni salad, and the katsu. As we said before we added in another side of cabbage salad. An ice cream scooper works well to scoop the items. Since we don’t own an ice cream scooper, we decided to plate ours like this:

AND NOW….To top off our already delicious tasty meal! What about these chewy Hawaiian inspired Macadamia Nut White chocolate Expresso Cookies? H finally gave in and decided to hand over the recipe, but only under the condition that it has its own entry. Sigh. So until next time. Enjoy!