How To Make Katsu Sando | Recipe - video Dailymotion

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Here's how to make katsu sand by Tim Anderson, MasterChef winner.

Transcript

00:00Hi everybody, I'm Tim Anderson. I'm the executive chef and owner of Nanban and

00:05author of Nanban the Cookbook. It's a restaurant in Brixton. We do what's

00:09called Japanese soul food and today we're gonna make a Japanese soul food

00:13classic katsu sando, tonkatsu sandwiches.

00:21So a katsu sando has to have a lot of texture. It's obviously got the crispy

00:26juicy breaded pork and the lovely soft white bread but then I always like to

00:30have a lot of fresh crunch from cabbage. So this is a hispy or sweetheart cabbage.

00:35If you can get the flat round cabbage you sometimes see in Asian supermarkets

00:40that's even better but this is really good really sweet. We want to slice this

00:44as thinly as you can. If you got a mandolin at home you can use that otherwise

00:49just a nice sharp knife. If you're really lazy or you have to prepare a lot of

00:55katsu sando's you can also run this through a food processor with a slicing

00:59attachment. And actually you can use kind of whatever cabbage you like. I like his

01:03because it's so sweet and fresh. Red cabbage is fine too. Not traditional but

01:08really nice really peppery. Alright that's our cabbage done. Alright so we've

01:14got our cabbage sliced up ready to go. Now obviously we have to turn to the pork

01:19itself. So there's a lot of different cuts actually that work for this but I

01:22really like loin. It's a really sort of good balance of fat and lean meat. It's

01:27tender enough that you can bite right through it in the sandwich and it's a

01:30perfect size as well. It fits within slices of bread just about perfectly. Now

01:34ordinarily when I'm making tonkatsu I like a nice big thick pork chop because

01:38that way it stays a bit pink and juicy in the middle actually. But with a sandwich

01:42you want to get something a little bit thinner. Now if you've ever made schnitzel

01:44before they always tell you to bash out the pork make it really really thin or if

01:48it's chicken to butterfly and then bash it out. But I think that almost always just

01:52results in overcooked dry pork. I never understood why they do that. So these are

01:56about right. These are just over sort of a centimeter and a half thick which is

02:01thick enough that they'll be easy to cook through but not so thin that they will

02:05dry out. So these are perfect. Now we're gonna season these well with salt

02:10and white pepper and also this. This is meat tenderizer powder. Obviously because you want

02:25to be able to bite through the pork in the sandwich you don't want to have to

02:29chew or struggle with it at all. It has to be as tender as possible. I tried

02:32different marinades to achieve this but what I didn't like is that the marinades

02:35tended to impart too much flavor. I really just wanted this to taste like pork. So a

02:39friend of mine recommended this. It's derived from papaya. It has an enzyme in it

02:43called papayin which is the same thing you get in kiwi fruit or pineapple which

02:46sometimes makes your tongue go tingly. That's actually the tenderizer effect

02:50happening on your tongue. So it actually starts to break down the meat and it works

02:55really really well. It's very effective and doesn't impart any other flavor. You

02:58should use it very sparingly because actually if you use too much it can make

03:03the meat kind of mushy, kind of too soft actually. We'll just sprinkle that on like you

03:08with salt on both sides.

03:16Okay so these are nice and seasoned. We want to put these in the fridge for

03:20about an hour for that tenderizer to work its magic on these. Alright so we've

03:26got our pork which has been in the fridge tenderizing for about an hour and now

03:30we're going to move on to the next step which is to pane, breadcrumb the tonkatsu.

03:33So tonkatsu sandwiches, katsu sando, they're always delicious because it's deep

03:38fried pork in a sandwich so what's not to like. But there are a few tricks, few

03:42little things you can do to make it amazing and not just really good.

03:45Obviously the meat tenderizer powder is one of those little tricks. Good quality

03:49pork is important as well but then how you breadcrumb and a few things that go

03:52into that is also going to make a really amazing katsu sando. So we're going to move on to

03:57that now. I'm going to start by beating a couple of eggs and to these we're going to

04:10add a little bit of vegetable oil. The oil is obviously water impermeable so when

04:19you mix this into the eggs it creates a kind of barrier around the pork. It kind of

04:23seals in the water and the juice from the pork itself. It won't evaporate off as

04:27much which does two things. First keeps the meat juicier and secondly it keeps the

04:31water from seeping out into the breadcrumb after it's cooked so the breadcrumb

04:34itself stays crunchier.

04:35All right nice and smooth. Then what you need is some flour. So I found for some reason

04:52that it is a food science question that's beyond me. Strong white bread flour works best

04:58in a katsu sandu. It is a better adhesive somehow and also I feel like it helps with the crunch

05:03a bit. Something about the gluten in it. And then finally we have panko. Panko breadcrumbs.

05:08Japanese style breadcrumbs. More like shavings of bread than actual bits of bread. And we just

05:16do egg flour breadcrumbs. When you're panning also it's a good idea to have one wet hand which

05:27you're using to deal with the eggs and then one dry. So nice and well coated into the flour.

05:37Back into the egg again.

05:45And that double dipping in the egg forms a really nice kind of glue.

05:50All right so I'm just going to pat that in. As you're putting the panko on the chops you can

05:59actually kind of press it down and flatten it out a bit. Make it nice and wide so it fills

06:05the bread when we make the sandwiches.

06:10All right so that's all pan-aid. They already look good actually. And you can make these ahead of time

06:14by the way. These will be fine in the fridge for up to a day actually. So you can make them the day

06:17before and then all you have to do is drop them in oil to fry them. So what we're going to do next.

06:21Okay so we've got our lovely pork chops all coated in crunchy panko. Now it's time to deep fry. So

06:27safety first with deep frying. You want to use a big pot where the sides come up several inches

06:32above the surface of the oil so in case it does bubble up it doesn't overflow. Especially with a

06:37gas hob with an open flame that's a big fire risk. So use a big pot for your deep frying. Use a

06:42neutral vegetable oil with a high smoke point. This is sunflower but rapeseed is good too or

06:47peanut. And you want to get the oil to 180 degrees for these chops. So buy a thermometer if you don't

06:52have one. Every kitchen should have a thermometer. They're very very useful especially for things like

06:56meat cookery for example. But in the case of deep frying just a normal jam thermometer will do.

07:02So this is at about 190 which is fine for these chops but if your chops are thicker you want to use

07:10a lower temperature. So around 160 170 is sort of a good safe temperature for most pork chops because

07:16you want it to form that lovely rich golden brown crust at the same time that it cooks through. A

07:22little bit of pink in the pork is fine but you don't really want rare pork. I mean I don't mind it but

07:28it puts a lot of people off and also it's a bit chewier that way. And of course you want this to be nice

07:32and as tender and soft as possible in the sandwich form. So 180 will do for us.

07:41So we'll lay the chops in the hot oil.

07:52Because these aren't that big they'll only cook for about five or six minutes.

07:58All right so these chops are looking beautiful and golden brown. Look at that. Oh my god.

08:07So they're ready to come out. So drain them well. You can use a rack or just paper towel on a tray.

08:16And just like any meat you want to let them rest a bit before you cut into them or bite into them.

08:23And what that does is as the meat cools sort of evens out the cooking

08:33and it also makes the liquid inside less volatile so it doesn't come gushing out when you cut into it.

08:40So it keeps the juices in the meat basically. So let those rest for about five minutes and then we can

08:44construct our sandwiches.

08:45Okay so we've got everything we need now to make an awesome katsu sando. We've got our katsu.

08:53So we're just going to put it in a sando. We've got our cabbage as well and a few special condiments.

08:58Uh so it's not really a tonkatsu sando without tonkatsu sauce. So katsu sauce is kind of like a

09:03Japanese brown sauce. Um you can buy it at any Asian supermarket. Some big supermarkets uh normal

09:09supermarkets have it these days. You can make it yourself as well but it's kind of like making your own

09:13ketchup. Like it's kind of a faff and uh it's not going to be as good as the store-bought stuff.

09:18So you should just buy some tonkatsu sauce. Really really lovely and sort of an essential flavor

09:23in a tonkatsu sandwich. We also have Kewpie Mayo. Kewpie Mayo is a Japanese brand of mayonnaise. It's

09:29very highly seasoned. It uses malt vinegar and whole egg yolks. So it's a richer slightly sweeter

09:35flavored mayonnaise. Really delicious. You can also by the way kind of make your own Kewpie Mayo at home.

09:40Uh there are recipes online but you can also buy this just about anywhere these days as well. So you

09:44may as well get some. It's delicious. So supermarket white bread. This is uh this is the standard katsu

09:52sando bread. Um I think it's it's really important to have this kind of bread for katsu sando. You can

09:57use really whatever bread you like though but I think that the texture and the flavor of this is uh

10:01sort of nostalgic for me with these sandwiches. You don't want to get the cheapest white bread you can

10:05find because it's too flimsy. It'll sort of fall apart and squish down to become too thin. So you

10:10got to get something that's got some substance to it. All right. So bread. Kewpie Mayo on one side.

10:17Be generous with it.

10:18Be generous with it. Then a lot of cabbage. Then katsu sauce straight on the cabbage.

10:33The cabbage basically will help to catch that sauce so it doesn't uh get too onto the bread which will

10:39make the bread really soft. Then our lovely tonkatsu. A little bit more sauce on there. Just a big ring.

10:53Little bit more cabbage as well.

10:59Other piece of bread. Give it a good squish and then we slice and enjoy.

11:05Oh yes. Look at that. Lovely, juicy, delicious pork katsu sando full of cabbage, full of sauce,

11:18full of kewpie mayo on delicious soft white bread. And it's simple and it's quick. There's really nothing

11:26stopping you from making this right now.

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How To Make Katsu Sando | Recipe

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