Chicken Katsu Udon is an amazingly versatile dish, perfect for snacks, sides or a main meaIs. At is simplest it consists of a bowl of noodles, vegetables and broth topped with crumbed fried chicken.

It is very easy to make and friends of mine have even made it on a camping trip.

This recipe will feed two adults for lunch. Add more noodles, chicken, vegetables and broth to bulk it up for dinner.

You will be:

1. Preparing the chicken.
2. Frying the onion toppings.
3. Preparing the other vegetables.
4. Cooking the noodle broth and crumbed chicken
5. Serving.

You will need:

• Ingredients
  • 1 large chicken breast, butterflied
  • Ground rock salt, to taste
  • Ground black pepper corns, to taste
  • White flour, enough to coat the chicken breast
  • Panko bread crumbs, enough to coat the chicken breast
  • 1 egg, beaten egg
  • 1 brown onion, sliced
  • 1 cup Asian greens e.g. bok choy leaves and stems
  • 1 small handful torn coriander (cilantro) leaves
  • 1 packet of soft Udon noodles
  • 4 cups home-made chicken stock
  • Olive oil and/or chili oil, enough to cover the base of the pan to half the depth of the chicken breast and a splash for frying the onions
  • A handful of sliced shitake or enoki mushrooms
• Equipment
  • several chopping boards
  • a long sharp knife
  • a rolling pin or meat tenderiser
  • two large plates
  • one medium sized bowl for coating the chicken breasts
  • a medium sized saucepan for the broth and noodles
  • a deep frypan for shallow frying the crumbed chicken
  • paper towel to absorb excess oil
  • deep bowls for serving
  • tongs for cooking the chicken in the oil
  • tongs for adding the hot noodles to the serving bowls

Preparing the chicken

1. Take your chicken breast and butterfly it. I completely separate the halves at this stage, place them on a chopping board and bash the stuffing out of them using a rolling pin. This makes them really tender and easier to cook through without burning the outside crumb coating. This dish also works really well with chicken tenderloins (these are the pectoralis minor of a chicken and they don’t need tenderising).
2. Salt and pepper them to taste and then successively coat them in flour, dip them in the egg and roll them in the panko crumbs.
3. Refrigerate them for 30 minutes or as long as it takes you to prepare the rest of the dish.

 Fry the onions

1. Thinly slice the 1 brown onion.
2. Heat the oil in your deep fry pan.
3. Add the onions and crisp them up, moving them continuously.
4. Pop them into the fridge after soaking up excess oil with paper towel.
5. Clean the fry pan with some paper towel so you get rid of any burnt onion bits.

Prepare the vegetables

1. Roughly chop your Asian greens and other vegetables of choice. No need to cook the greens as they will quickly steam as you add them to the hot broth at serving time.
2. Tear the coriander leaves to make a nice garnish.
3. Hot Tip – Bring the crumbed chicken breasts out of the fridge at this point and allow them to return to room temperature. This will allow you to cook them golden brown on the outside and avoid a raw center.

Cook the noodle broth and crumbed chicken

You are going to have to keep an eye on two processes here. Sorry 🙂

1. Add the stock and noodles to the saucepan.
2. Heat the oil in the deep frypan so it is lightly bubbling.
3. While you are lightly frying the chicken, slowly bring the noodle broth to the boil.
4. When golden brown on both sides, remove the chicken from the oil and pat dry with paper towel.
5. Slice the chicken.

The panko crumbs are so light that I prefer a longer slower fry:

Cooking the noodles in the broth as it comes to the boil:

The sliced chicken:

 

Serving

1. Add the desired amount of noodles to each bowl using tongs.
2. Add the desired amount of greens and vegetables to each bowl.
3. I add the slices of mushroom now.
4. Pour in the desired amount of broth to each bowl.
5. Top with some of the torn coriander and the fried onions.

Happy slurping,

PK

Here are more soup recipes and Japanese cuisine posts: