Menchi-katsu (メンチカツ, minced cutlet)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Deep heavy pot or tempura nabe
• •Deep-fry thermometer
• •Wire rack set over a tray
• •Long cooking chopsticks (saibashi), or metal tongs
• •Three shallow trays for flour, egg, and panko

Instructions

1. 1

   Soften the onion

   Warm 1 tablespoon oil in a small pan over medium-low heat. Add the minced onion and a pinch of the measured salt, then cook 7 to 9 minutes until translucent, sweet-smelling, and reduced, with no browning. Spread it on a plate and cool completely. Raw onion sheds water inside the patty and leaves sharp little pockets; hot onion warms the pork fat and weakens the bind.

   Cool the onion until it no longer feels warm to your fingers. Cold ingredients make a cleaner, juicier menchi.
2. 2

   Soak the panko

   Stir the 1/2 cup panko with the milk and leave it for 5 minutes. The crumbs soften into a quiet binder, keeping the cutlet juicy without making it heavy. If dry crumbs go straight in, they steal moisture from the pork as it cooks.

3. 3

   Bind the pork

   Put the ground pork and the remaining salt in a cold bowl. Mix and knead with your hand until the meat turns sticky and pale and clings to the side of the bowl, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the soaked panko, egg, cooled onion, pepper, nutmeg, and Worcestershire sauce, then mix only until even. Salt first because it draws out the proteins that bind the mince; everything after that is seasoning and tenderness.

   Sticky pork is not a mistake. It is the net that holds the juices in place while the crust browns.
4. 4

   Shape and chill

   Divide the mixture into 8 portions. Lightly oil your hands, toss each portion between your palms a few times to drive out trapped air, then shape into ovals about 3/4 inch thick. Press a shallow dimple in the center of each one and chill for 20 minutes. Air pockets split in the oil, cold patties hold their shape, and the dimple lets the center swell flat instead of rising into a dome.

5. 5

   Bread the cutlets

   Set the flour, beaten eggs with water, and coating panko in three shallow trays. Coat each patty thinly with flour and shake off the extra, dip it in egg, then press panko all over. Rest the breaded cutlets on a rack for 10 minutes while the oil heats. The order is not ceremony: flour gives the egg a dry surface, egg glues the crumbs, and the rest lets the koromo, the coating, settle.

6. 6

   Fry steadily

   Heat the frying oil to 165 to 170 C, or 330 to 340 F, in a deep heavy pot. Fry 3 or 4 cutlets at a time for 4 to 5 minutes, turning every minute, until the panko is deep gold and the center reaches 71 C, or 160 F. Keep the bubbling lively but controlled. If the oil is too hot, the crust darkens before the pork is cooked through; if it is too cool, the panko drinks oil.

   No thermometer? A pinch of panko should sink, rise promptly, and fizz steadily. If it races dark at once, wait. If it sits heavily, heat the oil a little longer.
7. 7

   Drain and serve

   Lift the cutlets to a wire rack and rest them for 3 minutes. Cut one open if you are not using a thermometer: the meat should show no pink and the juices should run clear. Serve with shredded cabbage, tonkatsu sauce, karashi, and lemon if you like it. Put the sauce beside the cutlet or in a small dish, not over everything. The cabbage cuts the richness, and the sauce should sharpen the cutlet, not do its work for it.

Chef Tips

• •Many sōzai shops, the prepared-food counters, use a pork-and-beef blend. For a pork table, ask for freshly ground shoulder with enough fat, about 20 percent. Lean mince makes a tidy little brick.
• •Cabbage is not decoration. In spring, shin-kyabetsu, new cabbage, is soft and sweet; in colder months, slice firm cabbage very fine, soak it in cold water for ten minutes, then drain it thoroughly. The side vegetable has shun too.
• •No dashi powder belongs in the meat. Menchi-katsu is yōshoku, and its depth comes from pork fat, sweet onion, salt, and the crust. Add granules and you get flat saltiness, which is not a secret worth keeping.
• •Japanese tonkatsu sauce is the right bottle. If you can't find it, mix Japanese Worcestershire sauce with ketchup and a little shōyu as a sensible stand-in, then serve it in a small dish.

Advance Preparation

• •The onion can be cooked and cooled 1 day ahead, then kept covered in the refrigerator.
• •The pork mixture can be shaped up to 6 hours ahead. Keep the patties covered and cold, then bread them shortly before frying.
• •Breaded cutlets can wait 2 hours in the refrigerator on a rack. Longer than that, the panko starts to soften before it reaches the oil.
• •Shredded cabbage can be sliced 2 hours ahead. Soak it briefly in cold water, drain it well, and keep it chilled until serving.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 250g)