Here's how to make katsu sand by Tim Anderson, MasterChef winner.
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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 you
04:19mix this into the eggs it creates a kind of barrier around the pork and 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. Back
05:37into the egg again and that double dipping in the egg forms a really nice kind of glue. All right so
05:53I'm just going to pat that in. As you're putting the panko on the chops you can actually kind of press
06:00it down and flatten it out a bit. Make it nice and wide so it fills the 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.
06:20Okay 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 above
06:32the surface of the oil so in case it does bubble up it doesn't overflow. Especially with a gas hob with
06:37an open flame that's a big fire risk. So use a big pot for your deep frying. Use a neutral vegetable
06:42oil with a high smoke point. This is sunflower but rapeseed is good too or peanut. And you want to get
06:48the oil to 180 degrees for these chops. So buy a thermometer if you don't have one. Every kitchen
06:53should have a thermometer. They're very very useful especially for things like meat cookery for
06:57example. But in the case of deep frying just a normal jam thermometer will do. So this is at
07:03about 190 which is fine for these chops but if your chops are thicker you want to use a lower
07:11temperature. So around 160-170 is sort of a good safe temperature for most pork chops because you want
07:17to form that lovely rich golden brown crust at the same time that it cooks through. A little bit
07:22of pink in the pork is fine but you don't really want rare pork. I mean I don't mind it but it puts
07:28a 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.
07:38So we'll lay the chops in the hot oil.
07:44And because 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.
08:05So they're ready to come out. So drain them well. You can use a rack or just paper towel on a tray.
08:14And just like any meat you want to let them rest a bit before you cut into them or bite into them.
08:26And what that does is as the meat cools sort of evens out the cooking and it also makes the liquid
08:35inside less volatile so it doesn't come gushing out when you cut into it. So it keeps the juices in the
08:41meat basically. So let those rest for about five minutes and then we can construct our sandwiches.
08:47Okay 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.
08:58So it's not really a tonkatsu sando without tonkatsu sauce. So katsu sauce is kind of like a
09:03Japanese brown sauce. You can buy it at any Asian supermarket. Some big supermarkets,
09:08normal sumo markets have it these days. You can make it yourself as well but it's kind of like
09:13making your own ketchup. Like it's kind of a faff and it's not going to be as good as the store
09:17bought stuff. So you should just buy some tonkatsu sauce. Really really lovely and sort of an essential
09:22flavor in a tonkatsu sandwich. We also have Kewpie Mayo. Kewpie Mayo is a Japanese brand of mayonnaise.
09:29It's very highly seasoned. It uses malt vinegar and whole egg yolks. So it's a richer, slightly sweeter
09:34flavored mayonnaise. Really delicious. You can also, by the way, kind of make your own Kewpie Mayo at
09:39home. There are recipes online but you can also buy this just about anywhere these days as well. So
09:44you may as well get some. It's delicious. So supermarket white bread. This is the standard
09:51katsu sando bread. I think 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
10:00sort of nostalgic for me with these sandwiches. You don't want to get the cheapest white bread
10:05you can find because it's too flimsy. It'll sort of fall apart and squish down to become too thin.
10:10So you got to get something that's got some substance to it. All right. So bread. Kewpie Mayo
10:15on one side. Be 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 get too onto the bread which will make
10:40the bread really soft. Then our lovely tonkatsu. A little bit more sauce on there. Just a big ring.
10:51A little bit more cabbage as well. Other 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. Full of Kewpie Mayo.
11:20Delicious soft white bread. And it's simple and it's quick. There's really nothing stopping you from making
11:27this right now.