Japanese Recipes for Healthy Living

Archive for the ‘pork’ Category

Who doesn’t love this dish? This may not look like a typical Japanese food, but this dish is one of the most popular Japanese food, and there are so many restaurants that spcialize in Tonkatsu (Pork Cutlet) in Japan.

Tonkatsu consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one centimeter(0.4 inch) thick. Either a pork fillet or pork loin cut may be used. The meat is usually salted, peppered and dipped in flour, beaten egg then panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) before being deep fried. If you don’t like pork, you can also use chicken breast or chicken tenderloin ( in that case, it’s called “Chicken Katsu”). My version of Tonkatsu is pretty much a typical tonkatsu recipe, but when I season the meat with salt and pepper, I also sprinkle some garlic powder. I believe that makes a difference for the better.

<Ingredients>
Pork tenderloin 1lb

1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs
2/3 cup panko bread crumbs
olive oil for frying

<How to Prepare>
1. Cut the pork tenderloin 1/2 to 1/3 inch think, then pound it with the back of the knife. (don’t pound too much…)
2. Sprinkle salt and pepper and garlic powder on both sides of the meat.
3. Dredge it into flour lightly, then dip it in beaten egg, then put panko on the pork and pat them well.

4. Heat a skillet and add about 1/8 inch deep olive oil. Fry the pork in 330F oil for 2 to 3 minutes, then flip the pork and cook another 2 to 3 minutes.

5. Take out the pork and put them on a paper towel to drain the oil.
6. Serve it with Tonkatsu sauce (you can find it at Asian grocery stores). If you don’t have it, mix worcester sauce and kechup. You may like it with A1 sauce.

The green stuff in the picture on top is sauteed spinach. Heat a thin layer of olive oil, add sliced garlic and fry it, then add spinach. Season with salt and pepper, and done!

This is a very common Japanese food. Potato and ground pork are cooked with soy sauce and sugar. You can use any kind of ground meat. This can be a good side dish, and you can cook it a few hours before the main course.

POTATO SOBORO NI

• 2 large russet potato, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inches thick, and quartered (as you see on the picture below)
• 1/4 pound ground pork
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp. chili bean sauce (Toban Dian) <optional>
• 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. sake
• 3/4 c. water (to cook potato)
• Olive oil
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch
• 2 tbsp. water (to mix with cornstarch)

1. In a big pan, heat a thin layer of olive oil. Cook ground pork until it’s browned. Then add onion, garlic, ginger and stir them. Then add potato and fry it so that all potato are coated with oil (about 3 minutes).
2. Add chili bean sauce, sake, sugar and 3/4 cup of water. Stir it lightly. Then put a lid on and cook it about 10 minutes.
3. Poke the potato with a toothpick or fork. If it’s soft enough, add soy sauce and cook 5 more minutes.
4. While the potato is cooking, mix cornstarch and 2 tbsp of water in a small bowl. Then add it to the pan, and stir it slowly.

I recommend you check the taste before adding cornstarch. If you like it saltier, you can add more soy sauce or salt. You may want to add more sugar. Most Japanese people prefer it sweeter.

For some reason, this kind of dish tastes much better 2 or 3 hours after cooking. Actually if you make a lot and keep it in a fridge, you can pop it in the microwave  anytime and eat it.  My mom used to say, it tastes better after a few hours because all the flavors get absorbed when the food is  cooling down.

Once in a while, you have to check what’s in your fridge, and use up everything before the next trip to the grocery store. This menu is perfect for that.

Clean-Up-Fridge Fried Rice

You can put whatever you can find in your fridge, and just fry them and season it with salt and pepper and soy sauce, and if you like it spicy,  put some chili garlic sauce. I thought about writing a recipe about this dish, but there is no point to write the recipe since you can use different kinds of vegetables every time you make this.
But there are some ingredients you can’t make without.

• Cooked rice- Left over rice is fine. But if it’s frozen or in a fridge, warm it up by a microwave before cooking.
• Oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Salt and pepper

This time, I used broccoli (green part and chopped core), sliced lotus root, red bell pepper and thin sliced pork. Start frying with onion, then put something that takes longer time to be cooked first. This time I started with onion, then chopped pork, broccoli core, lotus root and red bell pepper, then garlic, then green part of broccoli. Finally, I put some warm rice and seasoned it with salt and pepper, soy sauce and chili garlic sauce
. It was tasty, and my fridge was cleaned up! So satisfying.