When I lived in Japan my favorite food was Katsu. Katsu likely is Japanese shorthand for cutlet (Katsu-retto). What makes the dish extraordinary is the sauce. It is a mixture of Japanese and European -- the Japanese word for this cuisine is YoShoku (Yoo means Western and Shoku means food).
The sauce is like molasses or barbecue sauce but it also has
Japanese flavors
Recently I came across a recipe for miso katsu sauce that I have been simplifying and adapting.
First, no alcohol, so I substitute simple syrup. Then no gluten, so I use gluten-free
red miso paste. We have this simple recipe:
- Boil 1/4 cup of water -- it boils quickly.
- Start adding white sugar, 1/2 tbsp or 1 tbsp at a time, until the water is syrupy.
- Turn off the heat, and start adding red miso paste 1 tbsp at a time until it is thick.
This simple recipe was excellent, but I have experimented
by:
- Adding ginger to the water before it boils. This is excellent.
Planned experiments include:
- Adding flaky dried shiitake mushrooms
- Doing a traditional katsu sauce and adding tomato paste, vinegar, fruit (I like pears), tamari soy sauce (which is gluten-free) and possibly seaweed of some sort and possibly chili peppers of some sort as well as black pepper. I will update this once I have a better recipe.
