Everything about Tonkatsu totally explained
Tonkatsu (豚カツ, とんかつ, or トンカツ), invented in the late 19th century, is a popular dish in
Japan. It consists of a
breaded,
deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick and sliced into bite-sized pieces, generally served with shredded
cabbage. Either a pork fillet (ヒレ,
hire) or pork loin (ロース,
rōsu) cut may be used; the meat is usually salted, peppered and dipped in a mixture of
flour, beaten egg and
panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) before being deep fried.
It was originally considered a type of
yōshoku—Japanese versions of
European cuisine invented in the late 1800s and early 1900s—and was called
katsu-retsu ("cutlet") or simply
katsu. Early
katsu-retsu was usually beef; the pork version, similar to today's tonkatsu, is said to have been first served in 1890 in a western food restaurant in
Ginza,
Tokyo. The term "tonkatsu" ("pork
katsu") was coined in the 1930s.
Variations
Tonkatsu has Japanized over the years more so than other
yōshoku and is today usually served with rice,
miso soup and
tsukemono in the style of
washoku (traditional Japanese food) and eaten with chopsticks. Recently, some establishments have even taken to serving tonkatsu with the more traditionally Japanese grated
daikon and
ponzu instead of tonkatsu sauce.
Tonkatsu is also popular as a sandwich filling (
katsu sando), or served on
Japanese curry (
katsu karē). It is sometimes served with egg on a big bowl of rice as
katsudon - an informal one-bowl lunchtime dish.
Regardless of presentation, tonkatsu is most commonly eaten with a type of thick
Japanese Worcestershire sauce called Tonkatsu Sauce (
tonkatsu sōsu) (トンカツソース), often simply known as
sōsu ("sauce"), and often with a bit of spicy yellow
karashi (Japanese
mustard) and perhaps a slice of lemon. Some people like to use
soy sauce instead. In
Nagoya and surrounding areas,
miso katsu—tonkatsu eaten with a
miso-based sauce—is a specialty.
Variations on tonkatsu may be made by sandwiching an ingredient like
cheese or
shiso leaf between the meat, and then breading and frying. For the calorie conscious,
konnyaku is sometimes sandwiched between the meat. And in
Waseda,
Tokyo, a restaurant serves a tonkatsu with a bar of chocolate sandwiched inside, sometimes compared to a Western creation: the
Deep fried Mars bar.
There are also several variations to Tonkatsu which uses alternatives to pork:
- Chicken katsu (チキンカツ) is a similar dish, using chicken instead of pork. This variant often appears in Hawaiian plate lunches.
- Menchi katsu is a minced meat patty, breaded and deep fried.
- Hamu katsu (ハムカツ "ham katsu"), a similar dish made from ham, is usually considered a budget alternative to tonkatsu.
- Gyū katsu (牛カツ "beef katsu"), also known as bīfu katsu, made from beef instead, is popular in the Kansai region around Osaka and Kobe.
- Ssengseonkkaseu (생선까스 "fish katsu") is a Korean fish-cutlet modelled on the Japanese Fry. In Korea, this dish is known as donkkaseu (돈까스), a simple transliteration of the Japanese word to Korean.
Prices for a tonkatsu vary from 198 yen for a pre-cooked tonkatsu available in a supermarket to over 5000 yen in an expensive restaurant. The finest
tonkatsu is said to be made from
kuro buta (black pig) from
Kagoshima Prefecture in southern
Japan.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Tonkatsu'.
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