Monday, July 5th, 2010
I've already posted a chicken katsu recipe but I wanted to give it a little twist to go with the rest of my rather California fusion beet leaves. I did almost the same thing as I posted in the classic chicken katsu recipe except I used chicken tenders instead of thighs and I added in chopped almonds, thyme and lemon zest into the panko crumbs. Please note that you don't have to tederize the chicken since I used chicken tenders here. Even easier! Please see
Everybody's Favorite Crispy Chicken Katsu for how to prepare the chicken.
I also didn't use tonkatsu sauce and went with a sauce that went better with this particular build-a-meal.
I've been thinking about making homemade mayonnaise lately and I thought who better than to consult than Julia Child? I followed her mayonnaise recipe but added a Japanese twist. I wonder what she would think...
I have a close friend who works for a particular mayonnaise company and so I feel a little bad that I'm not being loyal to her and her company but I've been a little dissatisfied with the number of strange ingredients in low fat packaged mayonnaise that probably serves no other purpose except to preserve its shelf life and change its consistency.
I have also become increasingly paranoid about frozen foods after a friend of mine told me that some frozen foods use silica to thicken up their low-fat tomato sauces. EWWW!
Anyway back to the mayonnaise sauce which was probably the most exciting thing I've made in a long time. It's strange how something can go from being as boring as a condiment in a jar to a luxurious sauce. Thanks to Julia for inspiring me.
Ingredients for about 3/4 cup of mayonnaise sauce.
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/8 teaspoon of prepared mustard
1/2 cup of canola oil
2 teaspoons of boiling water
a few drops of soy sauce
*You can substitute this sauce with 1 tablespoon of prepared mayo and a few drops of soy sauce.
Directions
1) Julia says to heat a bowl with hot water and dry it before putting the yolk in. I added a medium size yolk as opposed to a large one so I went with the full proof method of using 1/2 a cup of oil instead of 3/4 cup of oil.
2) Whisk the egg yolk for 2 minutes until it starts to get frothy and thick. This may be hard to tell if you only use 1 yolk but there will be a difference in the texture.
3) Add the mustard, lemon juice and salt. Beat for another 30 seconds.
4) Now this is the hard part. Add in 1 drop of oil at a time at first and whatever you do, don't stop whisking! Julia says to use a teaspoon and add a little at a time but I didn't want to take any chances so I just added a few drops at a time. It seemed to take forever before I got the recommended 1/3 of the oil incorporated. After that, I was able to start drizzling in a little at a time and it ended up in a beautiful mayonnaise sauce.
5) After all the oil was incorporated, I took a little rest and added the boiling water and beat that in as well.
I didn't want to use all the mayonnaise so I just took out what I needed for two pieces of chicken per person. I mixed 1 tablespoon of the mayonnaise with a few drops of soy sauce and mixed well.
Egg Yolk in a warm bowl.
Frothy egg yolk.
Add in the mustard, salt and lemon juice.
After the oil is incorporated, it looks like this.
After the boiling water is added it looks like this.
Take 1 tablespoon of the mayo and add some soy sauce. You don't need any extra salt because the soy sauce has plenty. Just a drizzle.
Mix until incorporated.
Fry the chicken just as you would the in the regular chicken katsu recipe. About 1-2 minutes on each side.
Serve the chicken katsu with the sauce on the side.
