Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #15: Pork Cutlet

Tonkatsu, not to be confused with tonkotsu. Who would ever do that ha ha (me i would)

Tenderize the meat!

Guess who went and bought themselves a premium bonker just the other day!! I can beat my meat in style.

Remove tendon!

Still dunno what im doing with this tendon stuff, but I might as well remove some of the larger fatty chunks since im here.

Coat various foods!

I don't know why this is called "coat various foods" but yeah flour and egg.

Roll in the coating!

Coated in panko breadcrumbs. 

Deep fry!

Yes that's right I have a proper deep fryer now!!! It's just a mini one though so im folding it up atrociously to fit it in. Crimes but who cares cause ill chop it up at the end anyway. 

Arrange the plate!

This isn't even on the options again but I already had some broccoli to use up so we're doing tenderstem broccoli.

Finish

**** 

Delicious! I followed the fryer's instructions for how long to cook it and I think it was too long honestly, the pork seemed a little overcooked. Better than undercooked though. The panko coating was fantastic. I know tonkatsu has its own special sauce that's sorta like brown sauce, but I had it with some of the takoyaki sauce and kewpie mayo from the takoyaki night and that pairs pretty well too I think.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #14: Sandwich

 Challenge of a lifetime. Rare Nipponese delicacy, the サンドイッチ

Tear lettuce!

grab a couple leaves

Chop up!

tried cutting it diagonalese like in the game but i had already been cutting it straightwards earlier so ive ended up with... a mess.

Cut!

I am personally on team "tomatoes make sandwiches soggy and gross" but im doing this in the pursuit of true craftsmanship.

Make a sandwich!

Went and got all the optional crafting materials featured in the gameplay. Made it crustless just like Mama's metropolitan heathen bread (but I ate the crusts as a little side snack). I've also added a little mayonnaise and chilli pesto because we learned our lesson about capitulating to mama's minimal seasoning agenda back in our potato salad days.

Finish

***

As a European I find Mama's filling to bread ratio a bit unsettling, but you know what? I had a weird amount of fun with this. And with fresh good quality ingredients it made a tasty sandwich.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #13: Beef Steak

 Steak!! The flex meal of choice for divorced people. Pretty straightforward. I've never really felt like I mastered cooking steak, but I haven't failed at it either. Will cooking mama help me level up my steaking game? Probably not honestly.

Remove tendon!

I have no idea what I'm doing. No idea. Maybe this isn't an issue for ready to cook sirloin like this? I'm going to follow mamas directions and randomly stab the meat in places.

Add some flavoring!

Mama says to absolutely batter the steak in seasoning. It doesn't even say what "seasoning". I've decided to use salt and an orange-pepper seasoning mix, which is mostly black pepper and ground orange peel.

Melt the butter!

I feel like butter is the real steak flavouring honestly.

Pan-fry!

It's in there! I'm probably gonna aim for medium. My stomach wasn't mad impressed that time I undercooked the salisbury steak.

Arrange the plate!

Again I've come prepared, I cooked some oven frites on the sly while we were frying, and got some tomatoes and rocket.

Finish

****

Damn look at that I think I did this one justice. The steak was nice, the sides were nice... It's a little lacking in thrills though. Slab of meat on a plate. Just like my ex-wife eehhhhhh.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #12: Pan-fried Vegetables

New phone! Now my images can be obnoxiously high res. Making this one as a side dish for the family again.

Tear cabbage!

Cabbage was veto'd by sensitive stomachs so I've gone with pak choi instead. TBF I dunno what kinda tiny-ass cabbage is used in the original recipe but it doesn't seem like a whole unchopped white cabbage. I'm sure nothing else will veer wildly off course.

Separate sprouts!

Just kidding, just kidding! I forgot to get bean sprouts so I'm using a frozen stir fry mix that has sprouts but also mostly broccoli and carrots.

Cut!

At least we have some pork that's in the recipe.

Make sauce!

I like to think this is the main feature anyway, I got oyster sauce, mixed with soy sauce, salt and sugar. Never done an oyster sauce based stir fry before.

Saute!

Fried this for ages while I did another recipe (you'll have to wait for that one) and to reduce all the water coming off the frozen veg. Oh I also dumped a bit of egg whites in the mix because I was getting a yolk for another recipe.

Finish

****

It may not look massively faithful, but I like to think I still got the spirit of the recipe down. Bunch of common simple veg, a bit of pork and a nice oyster sauce. Everyone liked this a surprising amount, with its sweet, salty and weird fish-y mushroom-y umami flavour.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #11: Fried Octopus Dumplings

Takoyaki time! My family is visiting who happen to have a takoyaki pan so I made them bring it. Also my phone just died so big thanks to my sister for taking these photos with her camera. and hence why I suddenly have 2 hands.

Slice up!

I wasn't able to find whole octopus, but I did happen to find some octopus carpaccio and I got some little prawns as well for filling.

Add the ingredients!

We actually had some special takoyaki batter flour mix with flavourings, but you still add water and an egg just like in the recipe so same dif.

Mix!

Mixing it all up in my little spouty bowl.

Fry the dumplings!

I made a proper mess pouring in the first couple but then I got the hang of it. It barely even matters though because as you cook you flip them around and squish the cooked batter back in. Mama would have given me a silver medal but whatever you're not my real mom.

Finish

****

Dressed with takoyaki sauce and some of those seaweed flakes I bought earlier. If you ask me these are mostly a bit of hassle for a sphere of batter with a touch of protein. But flavour-wise I can't argue with a sphere of batter and a touch of protein in a nice tangy sauce.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #10: Pork Curry and Rice

This should be a nice straightforward one. The recipe just has you using the Japanese style instant roux which I've done before. It doesn't mention making the rice but we already know how thanks to RECIPE #1

Peel!

I used 2x fairly big potatoes and carrots cause that seemed like a good amount. No I did not arrange them to look like a weenus on purpose. hehe though. 

Slice up!

Chopped these up into big ol' chunks. Also cut 2 (smallish) brown onions to the same size.

Cut!

I bought one of those weird long PORK FILLETS because I thought that might be a nice cut to use. Have some leaner meat chunks rather than chewy fatty bits. And it's weirdly cheap.

Saute!

In the gameplay these always seemed to take about the same amount of time to cook so i've just tossed them in together. Took ages to brown a bit but eh no worries. They'll have more time to cook fully in the stewing part.

Measure and add!

The curry roux I am using has instructions on how much water to use, so we are doing just that!

Stew!

Stewing it in the water and adding the curry roux halfway through. Stir it a lot to make sure it's all dissolved and just let it do its thing really. Just left it on low heat for like 40 mins.

Finish

*****

This recipe is SO straightforward and so satisfying. The pork tasted great and you're making like 4-6 meals worth at a time. I highly recommend adding this to your repertoire if you need more simple, cheap recipes to feed a family or meal prep. (And if you're vegan you can easily skip the meat or add mushrooms)

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #9: Fried Fish

Lightly Fried Fish Fillets

Coat!

Similar to the karaage recipe, it's not full on batter or breadcrumb it's just a coating of flour.

Melt the butter!

Two fillets two butters. Well actually I just sliced the butter real thin.

Pan-fry!

This seemed to be going well, but on the second flip the pan had dried the hell out and I crumbled most of the fish. Alas. Abass. Cod damn it.

Arrange the plate!

So the classic thing to serve in UK with fish and chips is good ol' peas (garden or mushy). But in the games options you had a different array of vegetables. Was gonna do green beans but grocery store was out!! So I went with sweetcorn. Oh and I still added chip seasoning and generous amounts of cider vinegar. I'm not a monster.

Finish

***

It's no beer battered deep fried fish & chips from your favourite gastro pub, but it's pretty agreeable.