Cycle 3 – Item 152

5 (Tue) May 2012

Katsudon

1.0

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ

Katsudon is a Japanese dish.  It’s a type of donburi made with tonkatsu.

While making a passable tonkatsu from scratch isn’t the most difficult thing, it does require some prep work, so the ready-to-cook product from E-Mart was tempting.  On sale at 10,000 won for 2 packs of 4 cutlets each, I couldn’t resist.  Convenient, yes – just deep-fry in oil.  However, the meat was really salty, with the distinctive flavor of hotdog, and pink even after being cooked, making me suspect that it’d been brined in some kind of sodium nitrite solution, though I can’t imagine why.  After all, Koreans always smother their tonkatsu in tonkatsu sauce anyway.

Before I had a chance to taste them, I’d decided to take advantage of the time saved and make katsudon.  Unfortunately, because the tonkatsu itself was already so salty, the addition of the soy sauce broth made the dish overwhelming.

(See also FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)