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
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.