Latest Kitchen Hijinks

On Monday I wanted to make Hawaiian food in honor of the President's inauguration. After rejecting spam masubi and macaroni salad (hurl), I decided that I had everything on hand to make chicken katsu.

It's essentially a breaded, pan-fried chicken cutlet. Nothing too extraordinary, although I had never used panko before. Every recipe for the sauce said to mix ketchup with soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, but those instructions were a bit of a let-down. Also, I couldn't see just pouring ketchup all over the chicken like gravy, and that's what the pictures were showing. So I finally decided to try and make Japanese tonakatsu sauce, which involves applesauce, grated carrots, grated onions, tomato paste, garlic, ginger and soy sauce. And which ultimately tasted like grainy ketchup. Ugh.

chicken katsu

More successful was dessert, which I didn't get a picture of. This is chocolate haupia pie. Haupia is a flan-like coconut dessert popular in Hawaii; some GENIUS had the idea to layer it on top of a regular chocolate pie. It was pretty good.

It's worth noting that my friend Cayce, who lived in Hawaii during middle school, suggested Huli Huli Chicken. She says that they sold it there for school fundraisers, the way we would sell barbecue here. Huli Huli Chicken looks way better than what I made. I didn't have the ingredients on hand Monday for the inauguration, but maybe on Sunday for the Pro Bowl...

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