Dear friends and readers,
I know we have been talking about making some kinda of writing project about food for some time now.
In our first year of meeting, I had quite the delusional idea of hosting monthly dinner parties; that we could make a recipe book by the end of our graduate school training, documenting these shared experiences into a nice bounded booklet. That, of course, did not last given how busy we got. We had only made about two entries: a karaage (Japanese-styled fried chicken) and a paella (Spanish-styled rice dish). I had thought we had three… but unfortunately my records indicate otherwise.
We still have these dinner gatherings at my place. Less regular and regimented than monthly than my original grand plan, but nevertheless, they are some of my favorite moments in life. No, the food will definitely not be ready at 7 PM. However, you can count on that I will make quality food for my friends. Eventually. (I promise I will work on the pacing problem.)
I improvised some tonkatsu (Japanese-styled pork cutlets), a pasta salad, and a spinach salad a few Mondays ago for our dinner gathering. It was my first time trying out using fresh panko breading, which is when you take perfectly-fine slices of toast and blitz them into oblivion. I have always heard that cutlets made with Japanese milk bread panko makes an excellent, light crust. I didn’t have the luxury to have Japanese milk bread on hand, but its American cousin did the trick at a slightly lower frying temperature. The first cutlet at 180c produced a delicious-tasting charcoal (yes I ate it). 160c seems to be the sweet spot.
I didn’t have the premonition that I’d be writing this at that time, so unfortunately no photograph survived our night of indulgence. What I did find in my phone camera, was this picture of a katsudon that I had made for my roommate a while ago to celebrate his triumph over his math class.
Japanese food is always somewhat of a soft spot for me. My mom had studied fashion in Osaka in her twenties, and supported herself by working in Japanese cafes. Despite being 100% Chinese in our heritage, Japanese food was what my mother cooked for us. Katsudon was one of these dishes my mom cooked for me that was not only comfort food in theory, but also comfort food in practice.
The concept of katsudon is quite simple really; you have a fried pork cutlet, a bonito soy-sauce based broth, softly-beaten egg, and rice. The beautiful thing about it, is that it is a dish that excels at using interactions between the components to create a cohesive mixture. The fried pork cutlet, because of its breading, takes on the broth’s soothing flavors beautifully. The rest of the broth seeps into the rice, and the rice becomes this satisfying break between bites of a luscious cutlet.
To kick off our postcarding, I thought that this would be a perfect entry to start; something that is delicious, simple, and a comfort. Something that is deeply personal from my childhood, but also something commemorative of our present friendships.
Perhaps we can maintain this, perhaps we will not. I’m not sure how this will go. But if my 176 day Duolingo Streak on Japanese is any proof, is that I can stick to something consistent and make it work. So here goes.
Signed and Posted,
Cheers,
Jeff