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Chicken katsu, mac salad & rice // a birthday Hawaii plate lunch!

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For these recipes, I primarily consulted the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue Cookbook and a few other sources, and tweaked according to what sounded good to us.   We found that a touch of oyster sauce in the katsu sauce lent that perfect sweet-sour balance and gave us a sauce that I was tempted to guzzle down plain. For the katsu, we tried a few different dredging methods and found that the L&L cornstarch slurry method, not a dry-wet-dry dredge, gave the tastiest consistency — not too crunchy, but not too yielding. As for deep-frying, the shallowness of the oil makes this a tad more manageable than most, in my opinion, but if you’re feeling like hot oil just isn’t in your cards, you could also try using boneless thighs in this oven-baked panko chicken thighs recipe!

Ingredients

Scale
  • for the mac salad:
  • 1 quart water
  • 1 cup (4 oz) dried elbow macaroni
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise (or more or less, to taste)
  • 2 tbsp finely grated onion* (see Notes)
  • 2 tbsp grated carrot
  • 2 tbsp minced celery
  • 1/2 tsp brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper (or more or less, to taste)
  • 1/8 tsp white pepper
  • 2 tbsp milk (optional)
  • for the katsu sauce:
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup ketchup
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 1/4 tsp Tabasco
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp chicken bouillon
  • 1/8 tsp white pepper
  • 1/8 tsp garlic pepper
  • for the chicken katsu:
  • 1/2 lb (about 2–3) boneless chicken thighs
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup cornstarch
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp white pepper
  • 1/8 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 cups panko, or more as needed
  • to serve:
  • 2 cups cooked rice

Instructions

  1. For the mac salad: Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepot. Add the elbow pasta and salt. Boil for 12 minutes or until quite soft. Drain the water and let pasta cool thoroughly, about 30 minutes.
  2. Whisk together all remaining ingredients. When pasta is fully at room temperature, add the remaining ingredients to the macaroni and fold until well-coated. Chill for at least one hour and up to several days in the refrigerator.
  3. Just before serving, you can thin the macaroni with about 2 tbsp milk if you like. Adjust seasonings to taste and enjoy cold.
  4. For the katsu sauce: Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and let simmer for 4-5 minutes, or until mixture thickens and bubbles are slow, shiny and viscous, like caramel. Transfer to a small container and chill until ready to use.
  5. For the chicken katsu: Open the chicken thighs and flatten. Cut off any excess fat or skin, then pound with a rolling pin or the bottom of a small bowl until the thighs are an even 1/2-inch in thickness. Whisk together water, egg, cornstarch, salt, white pepper, and garlic powder. Dip the chicken thighs into the cornstarch slurry, then thoroughly coat in panko.
  6. To fry, heat about 1/2-inch of oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to 350 degrees. If you don’t have a deep-fry thermometer, heat the oil on medium heat until a small piece of chicken, when dropped into the oil, bubbles energetically. Fry the chicken thighs in the oil until golden brown and crispy, about 6-8 minutes per side.
  7. Let the chicken thighs cool briefly, then slice and serve with two scoops rice and one scoop mac salad!

Notes

For the closest version to a local-style mac salad, cook the macaroni until very soft, and for the onion, grate the onion on the small holes of a box grater. The onion should be pulpy and liquid.

Surprisingly, the whole plate lunch will keep decently — mac salad keeps in the fridge for a few days, and I found the Panko on the chicken keeps the chicken refreshingly crunchy for much longer than a plain breading.

Find it online: https://tworedbowls.com/2015/05/27/hawaii-plate-lunch/