Japanese Dinner

I guess that bento making has caused me to expand my cooking repertoire... that's a good thing right? Of course it is! Today's dinner would be japanese-inspired. Here's all the stuff I whipped up!

#1. Chicken Katsu

#2. Various Tempura-Battered Veggies

#3. Tempura & Panko-crusted Shrimp, Cucumber Rolls and Tuna Salad Rolls


1. The chicken katsu recipe can be found on allrecipes.com and is really simple. Being a KFC employee you'd think that I'd be sick of fried chicken... well, I'm not and don't think I ever will be. Even my boss isn't sick of chicken... I don't think it's possible to hate chicken, not when it's soooo goood! The katsu turns out nice and moist, not too greasy (unless you fry it wrong :P) and with just the right saltiness. I also made my own tonkatsu sauce by following this recipe. Eaten on a bed of rice with home-made tonkatsu sauce drizzled on it, this chicken katsu is actually a meal in itself... if I had known I probably wouldn't have made so much stuff for dinner... oh well :P

2. The batter I used to make the tempura was really simple (from chooseveg.com) and it even has a video showing you how to make the tempura. The vegetables I used were: carrots, zucchini (my family's favourite... we always fight over these ones, so I made extra), acorn squash, broccoli, sweet potato and some onions.

3. We just happened to have a sushi roll mat in the house, so I decided to try my hand a making both cucumber rolls and tuna-salad rolls. The cucumber rolls were basically made with sushi rice, nori, mayonnaise and thin cuts of cucumbers. The tuna-salad rolls were made with sushi rice, nori and tuna salad. Sushi making is so fun and simple. My sisters really enjoyed the sushi and my parents loved the shrimp. The panko-crusted ones tasted like popcorn shrimp from DQ (only better :P) and the tempura ones were also very tasty.