Thought for Food

Pearl Harbor Day is a major family holiday for us. It's the only 'day' both our cultures have in common.

When the war ended, my Dad was in Manila, staging for the million-man invasion of the Japanese home islands, while my future mother-in-law, a middle-school student, was being trained to charge the American invaders with a sharpened stick.

In honor of what might have been, but never was, what better dish to celebrate the day than the cultural synthesis of Pot Roast Japonaise.

A few years ago some friends from Japan were in town for a business trip and we invited them over for dinner. I suggested we have a pot roast (the high end kind described in the addendum to this article), sort of easy to make and bullet-proof even for the inevitably inebriated chef. May suggested I make it with "a Japanese taste".

I came up with a cool compromise, taking some hints from, well of course Sukiyaki; plus a related beef, potato and onion soup/stew. I've tinkered with the recipe over the years, but on that first try I somehow nailed all the basics, meaning it all came out pretty much as planned.

Our resident teenager wanted General Gao's Chicken, a hit from her lunch specials. May seemed to be homing in on fried noodles with shrimp, which left me to find some appetizer thing we could all eat... maybe.

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with squid. In Japan I've had squid a thousand ways, including "fermented" (note: not for the squeemish). They boil it, broil it, grill it and chill it. They dry it, soak it, shred it and bread it, but in some of the pubs over there, they fry it like it's nobody's business.

Getting squid done right isn't easy--undercook it and it's tough, overcook it and it's even tougher, but I love the stuff and decided to give Bernard's version a try.

Here in the US, most Japanese restaurants serve tonkatsu, among other things. However, in Japan, there are restaurants that specialize in 'furai' (fry) and their pork cutlets are to die for.

Our Friday fare, courtesy of May, was an excellent rival.

Thin cut loin chops are pounded even thinner, then rubbed with a little "shio-koshu", or fine grained salt and white pepper. The cutlets are then coated with flour, dipped in beaten egg and rolled in panko bread crumbs before deep-frying in peanut oil heated to 375° F.

But never go food shopping when you're hungry, and some sort of shish-kabob thing seemed in order.

After picking up a couple of portabello caps, asparagus, red and green peppers, zuchinni and a sweet onion, I settled on sirloin tip steak and one of their huge chicken sausages.

I let the beef, sausage and portobello marinate in a store-bought Korean roasted rib sauce (sometimes called 'Kalbi Sauce') until dinner... about three hours.

About a hour before cooking, I whipped up a marinate/baste for the veggies, which, except for the asparagus, I sliced thin and skewered for the grill: 2 TBS Korean Roasted Rib Sauce; 1 TBS Chinese cooking wine, 1 TBS peanut oil, 1 TBS mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine), 1 TBS fresh squeezed lemon juice. Whisk together and brush liberally onto the vegetable skewers and the asparagus. Salt and pepper to taste.