Japanese and JLPT

Basic Recipes

Tonkatsu

Ingredient: (4 servings)

70 g pork meat in 4 slices, salt, pepper.
For frying; bread crumbs, egg, flour.
salad oil, tonkatsu sauce, hot mustard, cabbage, 1/2 cucumber, 1 tomato.

1. Chop cabbage, soak in water. For tonkatsu, it must be cut extremely thin. It is better to chop a whole section of cabbage at once. If using individual leaves, they should be rolled tightly together and then choppped.
2. Slice tomato upright and thinly diagonally slice cucumber.
3. Garnish #2 on mound of cabbage.

How to make:

1. Make incisions on fiber using tip of knife.
2. Pound meat with meat mallet of with the back of the knife.
3. Do not pound meat too thinly. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the meat. Put egg, flour, bread crumbs in 3 separate shallow trays. Dredge flour on both sides of the meat. Pat off excess flour then dip into beaten egg.
   Spread meat onto bread crumbs (panko). Cover top of meat with crumbs and press. Repeat this processs on all slices.
4. Start frying when oil temperature reaches 180C. When meat starts to brown, reduce oil tempurature to 160C. Continue to fry slowly.
5. When small bubbles form on top of the oil, increase oil temperature back to 180C. This insures crispiness.
6. Drain oil on net.
7. Cut into bite size slices. Move meat to plates by holding a knife underneath.
8. Immedietly before eating, top with tonkatsu sauce. Add mustard to taste.