Tonkatsu Stars (265)

Writing this post today made me realize that I’m only 35 bentos away from bento #300. That’s insane! I’ll have to start planning already. If all goes well, it looks like I’ll be doing it before the year is over. Eeps!

Yesterday I made us all tonkatsu, but saved two slices of the pork for me to try out something I thought of a couple of days ago. This morning I got out my star cookie cutter and used it as a template for cutting four pork stars. I then proceeded to cook them how I would normally cook tonkatsu, only this time I had to position them just right so that they’d keep their shape.

They’re kinda blocked in this photo, but I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. Four turned out to be too many, so I just used three and left one star for Mr. Pikko to eat along with the other leftovers. To go with it I have rice with ume, tomatoes to go along with another convertible salad (didn’t bring dressing this time since we have like 50 bottles at work), carrots, takuan, broccoli, and three strawberries.

Here is a close-up photo of it:

Yeah I know, not much difference, haha. Oh well, I took the picture, I might as well use it! I’m currently stalking my camera through Amazon’s tracking and am very sad to say that it’s somewhere in Nebraska. *sob* Oh beautiful camera, why do you ship so slow?? I bet the memory card and spare battery arrive long before the camera, only torturing me more.

My FFXI bento has taken much better shape in my mind. I just need the camera!! >.<

Edit: I should put out once in a while, so here’s how I make my tonkatsu recipe:

Ingredients:

thin sliced boneless pork

fine panko flakes

eggs, beaten

flour

salt

pepper

oil for frying

1. Lightly salt and pepper the pork, then coat with flour.

2. Dip in eggs, then coat in panko. You can optionally coat with eggs and panko one more time, but this usually leads to the batter falling off when you cut it.

3. Fry in oil until golden brown.

4. To cut, place tonkatsu on a cutting board and simply take a chef knife and quickly slice it into strips with swift downward motions.

If you have tonkatsu sauce, great. If not, I mix ketchup and soy sauce. I actually prefer this over tonkatsu sauce. Old habit from growing up. ^_^