Well, the “pizzas” alone would earn this cookbook an eternal place at my side.
I didn’t have premade gyoza wrappers, just premade eggroll wrappers. I figured that would do—if the difference was a difference that mattered, I’d just think of this as the deep-dish version of the recipe.
I also didn’t have kewpie mayonnaise, which I sometimes keep around. Generally that takes a trip to H-Mart or maybe Wegman’s. But I know what makes it different, so I just took some commercial mayo, added a bit of cream to make it slightly more liquid, and put in some MSG for umami. (If you’re my age and you think MSG makes you have headaches and so on, look into it a bit: that is at least somewhat contested.)
Anyway, otherwise I had all of what Orkin wanted for his “pizzas” (I used some David Chang “spicy” flavoring rather than a togarashi shichimi blend, though I have that too.) This is one of those outcomes that I’m almost inclined to just say “sorry, I’m busy and can’t finish the resolution, see you next week” just because I want to just serve this at parties and have everyone tell me what an original cook I am. These are really great and very clever and incredibly simple.
The ginger pickle combined with the mayo, the spice, the mozzarella and the smoked tuna flake is just amazing. It’s important to let the wrapper underneath crisp up—they’re much better then.
So I was already happy at that point. The pork cutlets cooked with the basic sauce are also just great, and very much as he says diner food in the best sense—cheap, simple, and very satisfying.
You could make this for friends on a very low budget—mirin, soy sauce, some cheap sake or white wine, and ginger, along with pork, flour, rice and vegetable oil. One pan, very filling.
Every time I work with ginger, I recognize that one of the three or four pieces of kitchen equipment that makes me happiest is this ginger grater that my mother gave me a while back. It reminds me a bit of a garlic press that the senior chef at the restaurant I worked at had—I was kind of in awe of it, it was so well built and functional and I’ve never seen anything like it since. (She claimed it was made back in the early 1950s, and I believe it: it felt like it was built out of wartime scrap iron.)
Along with an avocado-led salad (I’m saving cabbage for a dinner tomorrow, in the end), this was pretty terrific. I’ll be using this book quite a bit from now on, and I guarantee future dinner guests will be getting some of those mini-pizzas.