Tonkatsu

I have not posted a recipe for aeons, so here is something simple and satisfying: tonkatsu, which you could call Schwein Schnitzel and I would probably accept, until you put tonkatsu sauce on it, but I am not there yet.

For the proper texture of the crust, you will have to find panko, the Japanese bread flakes, which have a much lighter texture than traditional bread crumbs. I imagine that you could make pannko by drying sweet French bread and gently flaking the crumb (not a bit of crust though).

Anyway, start with a boneless pork chop. Now, I rarely say this, but trim the fat off it. Then put it between two pieces of saran wrap and place it on a sturdy work board. Pound that thing flat with a mallet or a marble rolling pin, or the family dog (you will need to freeze it first, and then the children will cry, and the SPCA will come and throw you in prison forever, so only use the family dog if you can find absolutely nothing else). You want the pork to be about three eights of an inch thin. More or less. The thinner it is, the faster it will cook, and the higher the heat you can use, therefore, the less oil it will absorb.

Put it in a nonreactive bowl and let it marinate with a liberal amount of dry sake.

Meanwhile make your salad: Discard the ends of and peel a cucumber, leaving a few long, thin strips of peel. If your knife skills are good, use a very sharp chef's knife and slice the cucumber into paper thin slices. If your knife skills are not quite up to par, use a mandoline. Chances are you can't slice as finely as a mandoline, so you should go out and get one, if you don't have one. Otherwise, practice, practice, practice. It's probably best to be able to do it with a knife anyway, because it is much easier to clean a knife than a mandoline.

Also it looks cool. Especially if you can rapidly make paper thin slices while making eye contact with someone and having a conversation on a totally different topic. HA! After a martini. HA! HA! And not cut off part of your finger. OOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!

So, when you get back from the hospital (no, I actually did not get wounded last night, in spite of the martini. I just said that to make you feel better about your own knife skills. Practice. Practice. Practice. Then, when you carefully dissect small gamebirds without looking, folks will say "ooooh" to you too), sprinkle the slices of cucumber with black sesame seeds and seasoned rice vinegar.

Put the rice cooker on.

When the rice cooker clicks, heat your pan.

When the pan is hot, pour oil (canola, corn, any of the standard vegetable oils is fine) into it. About half to a whole inch. Let the oil get hot.

Take a pounded pork fillet, dunk it in flour, pat it evenly around in a thin layer. Dunk it in a bowl that has had an egg with some water beaten into it. Then give it a coating of pannko. Fry. Turn over. Make sure the whole thing is a uniform golden brown. Put on a plate with paper towling and do the next one (you can do two or so at a time, so long as they are not crowded). Salt both sides. When they are all done, slice them into bite-sized strips (remember, they should be chopstickable), serve with rice, salad, and tonkatsu sauce (I buy mine. I suppose you could make your own. It would be pretty easy, I think).

We had a chardonnay, because that is what I have (it is not my favorite white varietal, so we seem to have the most of it. I need to stock up on some good, dry Austrian white wine), and it was fine. We could have had beer, but we had already had cocktails, and going from a martini to beer is just wrong.

Posted by erik at December 6, 2006 11:30 AM