A Brown's Photographic Start in the Real World.: Cooking Pork Chops: Japanese Inspired!

Since I've returned home I am crazy excited to cook cook cook! I want to mend out all my mistakes and trials and errors here so that when I'm in Savannah my cooking will be spot on! My mom always keeps a lot of meat in the house in the freezer so I normally got a lot to work with. She has been eating much healthier now and I'm proud of that, but her methods lack excitement and daring combinations. So I coaxed into giving me money to buy some ingredients she wouldn't have in the house or think about buying. Mostly the Japanese stuff.

So my first meal was made Friday Night. I found a recipe for Wasabi-Panko crusted pork chops.
The hardest ingredient to find was the darn wasabi paste and I never did find the fennel seed. At any rate I managed to cook up a tasty meal. The pork chops and the panko did not stick very well even with the egg white coating. Next time I am going to leave the yoke in. There some type of adhesive like agent that goes missing when you take out the yoke. Frying was stealing my breading so I barely let the panko brown and I finished it off in the oven. While getting some color in the oven I made the wasabi-soy-ginger sauce that smelt amazing! I used real ginger instead of the powdered ginger and I think it gave it an interesting texture while still doing its job taste wise.

The final product did not look as pictured but it was mighty close! I paired my pork chops with a side of snow peas and matchstick carrots I chopped myself.

Going with this Japanese inspired theme I also made miso Soup for the first time! I was so proud of myself, it taste just like the ones in the restaurants! Thats the best feeling when you make something and match it to what you had or better it. In the online recipe the lady used: Dashi Seasoning, miso paste, tofu silken, and mushrooms, and green onion of course!
Tofu expired very quickly so I didn't want to buy it until I really knew i was going to make it. Plus I don't even like tofu, i was just afraid that without it would be missing something in its taste. Mushrooms are a no-no for me, I just don't do mushrooms. As for the dashi and miso paste it was no where to be found! The lady on YouTube suggested going to a restaurant and that's what I did.
I went to a nearby Japanese Hibachi steakhouse and proclaimed my love for miso and that I wanted to make it but I was missing the paste and the dashi. The man at the counter told me the only thing they put in their miso is the miso paste, tofu and Japanese seaweed. After looking at the miso paste and tasting the soup I think dashi was already in it or its just totally optional.

Anyway I got a huge tub of miso paste for $5 and a little cup of seaweed pieces on the house. Low and behold when I put the seaweed pieces in and the green onion (those are the last things to go in right before it reaches a rapid bowl.) the seaweed pieces unraveled to nice rectangular pieces of seaweed! i was so excited everything was looking so legit! Once the mixture boils remove it from the burner cause its done.

Here are the images from all the yummy food!