KFC Katsu Karē Donburi

WARNING! Japanese food purist will hate this post!

As mentioned in my Uomoto curry post, Mr. Mochi's favorite Japanese dish is katsu-karē (カツカレー), where tonkatsu (a deep fried pork cutlet) is served with rice and a generous portion of karē sauce poured over both. He loves to sprinkle shichimi togarashi over it and dig in whenever we go shopping at Mitsuwa. Unfortunately, I don't have a fryer and anyone who has deep fried anything knows that it is messy business trying to do it in a pot.  So when I make it at home, its a rare occasion. I will someday have to make it for this blog, but that will be when I am feeling more ambitious. Having just made some desserts for this blog, namely the Okinawan sweet potato haupia pie and an upcoming treat, I am out of funds and energy.

I needed something cheap, easy, and tasty.

So when I was thinking of what we had in the kitchen to make for dinner, Mr. Mochi starts salivating thinking of katsu karē, despite the fact we have no pork in the house. I was telling him this, and he said,

"Well what about chicken? You can make chicken katsu-karē?"

"Sheesh, what do I look like, a KFC? We don't have any chicken in the house either!"

KFC! Oh my god, I am a genius. I whipped up some karē sauce and rice, and sent Mr. Mochi out to get us some good ole Kentucky Fried. You know where this is going I bet...

Yes... I made a KFC Katsu Karē Donburi.

It was actually pretty damn delicious! The chicken was much greasier than a normal katsu, and obviously it came already seasoned, but being able to assemble it fast without any frying on my part was so awesome. Plus you can't really taste the seasoning under the curry sauce anyways.

I told him to get either popcorn chicken or chicken strips, but I think the most katsu-like would be getting one of their fried chicken pieces meant to go into a sandwich.  I think I will be using whatever is cheapest, which is probably popcorn chicken.

KFC Katsu Karē Don

1 large popcorn chicken, or two fried chicken patties from KFC
3 1/2 cups water
1/2 portion of instant karē roux
shichimi togarashi
2-3 cups hot rice

Heat the water over high heat in a saucepan until boiling.  Turn off heat, and put in the block of roux, broken into four pieces. Stir thoroughly until roux is completely dissolved, then turn the heat back to medium and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Turn off heat, and let cool slightly. Place half of the rice into each bowl, and top with the chicken. If using patties, cut into 1/2" strips before putting on rice. Spoon the curry over the rice and chicken, and sprinkle the shichimi togarashi to taste. Serves two.

Making this kind of felt like an episode of Epic Meal Time, slightly scandalous. In homage to that spirit:

And just 'cause we're *SQUAWK*ed up, we had some KFC mac n cheese on the side.

Oh no we didn't! We did!

See Also:
Deconstructed Ichigo Daifuku
Uomoto Style Kare: Hapa Food