So in my fic “We Call Everything…” there’s a point where Katsuki Hiroko teaches Victor how to make a proper katsudon. Do I know anything about how to make properly authentic katsudon? No, because I’m not a katsudon authenticity expert.
But I watched YoI, said, “Man, katsudon must be delicious,” tried two online recipes and said, “Hmm, these are pretty good, but they are not exactly ‘food of the gods’ good. What am I doing wrong?”
I then spent months (I wish I were exaggerating) reading about katsudon, experimenting on katsudon, ordering katsudon at Japanese restaurants, making all kinds of katsudon mistakes, and figuring out what I did and didn’t like. I also thought about what tools Yuuri’s mother would have had available to her in the making of katsudon.
Lo and behold, here we are–shysweetthing’s katsudon headcanon recipe. I have no idea if this recipe is authentic, but I do think it’s delicious.
Having spent months perfecting the recipe to my exacting personal tastes, I might as well share it. I used this recipe as my jumping off point.
I know this recipe is going to sound horribly elaborate, but that’s because I’m picky, long winded, and I added in a lot of irrelevant asides. If you (a) have the right ingredients in your kitchen, and (b) have sufficient practice, you can make a full-fledged katsudon (excluding the rice, the dashi broth, and the onsen eggs, which I’ll explain below) in about 20 minutes, which honestly isn’t bad for THE FOOD THAT GODS EAT.
There are a bunch of pieces to this, so I’m going to break it down.