Oyakodon is chicken and egg rice bowl. In Japanese, Oyako means parent and child so it’s indeed a smart word play to name this seasoned chicken and egg rice bowl (donburi). I made this dish following my Japanese week in the kitchen and this is one of the easiest dishes I’ve made in the kitchen.

The whole dish is oil free and is boiled. It’s basically a one pan dish (which I love due to little washing) and it’s fairly quick. The recipe here is for one bowl because it’s easier to do so. Multiply the recipe to the amount of serve your require. Don’t forget to cook some jasmine rice to go with the Oyako or otherwise it won’t be Oyakodon without the “don”.

Enjoy!

Oyakodon

• 1 chicken thigh, cut small into bite size
• 60 ml /4 tablespoon Dashi (Japanese stock)
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Mirin
• 1/4 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 green onion

Instructions

1. Add dashi, sugar, soy sauce and mirin in a pan. Heat until boiling.
2. Reduce heat to medium, add onion and cook for a minute.
3. Add chicken pieces and cook for around 4 minutes until chicken is cooked.
4. Pour egg over the chicken and onion. Cover and cook for a minute.
5. Prepare rice in a bowl, ready to go with the chicken and egg.
6. Take off heat and pour the mixed chicken and egg over your rice bowl. Garnish with green onion.

This week has accidentally turned into a Japanese food fiesta. This didn’t last for the whole week though because I went out of town for the second half of the week. Anyways, my Japanese week started when I realized that I still had a pack of shabu-shabu cut beef in the freezer. As the days have been quite hot and humid, making it into shabu-shabu wouldn’t be a good idea. At the same time I had been wanting to eat HokBen’s cabbage & carrot salad. After some recipes flicking on the web, I decided to go with Beef Teriyaki because I have all the ingredients and it’s one of the simplest to cook.

Of course, when I cook I always try my best not to use canned/bottled sauces. So the same principle goes in cooking this beef teriyaki. Instead of using bottled teriyaki sauce, I mixed some ingredients available in the pantry to make the sauce. The result? Tasty and yummy for a quick 30 minutes spent in the kitchen. Awesome! And don’t forget to cook fluffy white rice to go with this dish.

P.S. For the carrot and cabbage salad, I used bottled mayonnaise instead of homemade mayo because currently I’m not allowed to eat fresh mayo.

Beef Teriyaki with Carrot & Cabbage Salad

Beef Teriyaki

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup mirin (Japanese rice wine)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
• 500 gram beef (I used my leftover shabu-shabu slices)
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon oil
• Green onion, thinly sliced

Instructions

1. Pour soy, mirin, sugar, honey, sesame oil, garlic and ginger in a saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat. Once boiled, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool.
2. Prepare the washed and dried beef in a shallow bowl and pour the mixture in. Cover and let it marinate for 15 minutes.
3. Heat oil in a pan and stir fry onion until translucent. Do not overcook (brown) the onion.
4. Add beef and cook it to your liking. A thin slice would only require around 2-3 minutes and the dish is done!
5. Transfer the dish into a serving plate and garnish with green onion.

Carrot and Cabbage Salad

• 1 carrot, julienned
• 1/2 cabbage, thinly sliced using mandolin
• mayonnaise

Instructions

1. Mix carrot and cabbage in a bowl, and mix with mayonnaise to your liking.

Chicken Katsu reminds me of Hoka-Hoka Bento (a famous Japanese fast food chain here in Indonesia) and how I used to love eating them. In fact, I always ordered Chicken Katsu whenever my parents took us there.

This Chicken Katsu recipe is one of the easiest recipe to cook as it’s quick and requires basic kitchen ingredients, apart from the panko. However if you can’t find panko, you could always substitute it with breadcrumbs. A great Chicken Katsu would also require a great Tonkatsu Sauce and I’ll share a simple recipe for making one. If you opt to buy the Tonkatsu Sauce, the common one to find would from Bulldog brand.

Chicken Katsu with Tonkatsu Sauce

For Chicken Katsu:

• 2 chicken breasts, flattened
• Salt
• Black pepper
• All purpose flour
• 1 egg
• Panko
• Oil for deep frying

For Tonkatsu Sauce:

• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce

Instructions

1. Prepare your frying pan and heat oil in medium heat
2. Seasoned the flattened chicken breast with salt and pepper
3. Dip the seasoned chicken breast into the 3 ingredients in the following order:  flour, egg and panko
4. Fry the chicken in the medium heat oil until it’s golden brown, ensuring that the chicken is cooked through (not pink in the centre). Depending on the thickness, this might take 4-5 minutes
5. Once cooked, transfer your katsu to a paper tower lined plate to reduce the oil and leave to rest
6. Make the Tonkatsu Sauce by combining Worcestershire sauce, ketchup and soy sauce in a small bowl
7. Cut your katsu to serve and drizzle some sauce over katsu.
8. Serve katsu with a bowl of warm rice and the remaining sauce for dipping