Chicken katsu problem

[gfweb]

Trimmed room temp pork chop. Breaded and fried without resting. Held together nicely after a 5 minute post fry rest.

 

Nice and juicy at 145F.

 

Edited October 9, 2021 by gfweb (log)

[Duvel]

1 minute ago, gfweb said:

Trimmed room temp pork chop. Breaded and fried without resting. Held together nicely after a 5 minute post fry rest.

 

Great job - looks perfect 👍

[KennethT]

15 minutes ago, gfweb said:

Trimmed room temp pork chop. Breaded and fried without resting. Held together nicely after a 5 minute post fry rest.

 

Nice and juicy at 145F.

 

That looks great!

[KennethT]

@gfwebHow did you know when it was done to 145F?  Did you have a needle probe in there during the fry, or just go by color?

[gfweb]

1 minute ago, KennethT said:

@gfwebHow did you know when it was done to 145F?  Did you have a needle probe in there during the fry, or just go by color?

 

Tested it after well browned (~ 5 min total) and it was 138 in the center.  After 5 min rest it went up to 145.

 

So yeah, I cheated.  😉

[haresfur]

2 hours ago, gfweb said:

Trimmed room temp pork chop. Breaded and fried without resting. Held together nicely after a 5 minute post fry rest.

 

Nice and juicy at 145F.

 

Which suggestions did you take?

[gfweb]

1 minute ago, haresfur said:

Which suggestions did you take?

 

The ones in the video. Pretty much bread it and fry it.

 

I suspect that resting after breading might improve it, but I could be wrong.

 

I did salt the pork prior to breading.

[ElsieD]

I'm making it tonight but baking it.  Did you double fry?

[gfweb]

9 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

I'm making it tonight but baking it.  Did you double fry?

no

just a few minutes on each side

[haresfur]

I confess to never trying them, but butcher shops here sell pre-breaded schnitzels. Don't look like they use egg so I'm not sure how they are gluing the crumbs on. They must be doing something because they have to stand up to the abuse of display and transporting home.

 

Maybe I should take one for the team.

[ElsieD]

2 hours ago, gfweb said:

no

just a few minutes on each side

 

That's what I ended up doing.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

As I suggested upthread, I think we are really overthinking this.   Chicken and pork schnitzel have been mindless Tuesday night, after a couple of glasses of wine, mains.    Just flour/egg/panko thin cutlets, fry stovetop in quarter inch canola oil.   Flip, cook second side and serve.    Pay more attention to thicker slices of pork, but process is the same.    Husband likes less meat, more breading, so not a problem here.

[EatingBen]

Dry the meat, flour, egg, panko, rest for half an hour (can do in the fridge I don’t tend to) then into oil. I find the resting makes it all more sticky and also let’s the flour/bread absorb more of the egg evenly. I’ve breaded meat the day before as well and it sticks even better. 
 

oh and add salt/msg to the flour. To the flour I’ll also add potato starch but these are all extra things rather then technical naked fried chicken.

[Ann_T]

Everyone seems to like Panko except me.  I don't like the texture or the flavour. Or maybe it is the lack of flavour.  

 

I always use fresh bread crumbs for Chicken Katsu.

[chromedome]

24 minutes ago, Ann_T said:

Everyone seems to like Panko except me.  I don't like the texture or the flavour. Or maybe it is the lack of flavour.  

 

I always use fresh bread crumbs for Chicken Katsu.

Count me in the anti-panko corner as well. It's difficult to articulate what I dislike about it, the best I can say is that it's not a kind of crunch I appreciate. Like kettle-style potato chips. I'm also not a fan of the current fad for exposing a layer of pasta on top of the lasagna (or other baked dish).

 

I don't dislike crunchy foods in general, just that specific kind of hard crunch.

[Ann_T]

4 minutes ago, chromedome said:

 

I don't dislike crunchy foods in general, just that specific kind of hard crunch.

I don't dislike crunchy foods either, but for me Panko is like biting into shards of glass. 

[KennethT]

41 minutes ago, Ann_T said:

Everyone seems to like Panko except me.  I don't like the texture or the flavour. Or maybe it is the lack of flavour.  

 

I always use fresh bread crumbs for Chicken Katsu.

I don't know if you saw the video, but the katsu restaurant used fresh panko - it looked really soft.  I think that type of thing is basically impossible to get in a store.

[patrickamory]

To New Yorkers and visitors, please try Katsu-hama on E. 47 Street between Fifth & Madison. Sublime tonkatsu, chicken or pork. If you eat pork, I recommend the Berkshire.

[gfweb]

Michael Symon rests his breaded (chicken) cutlets 30 min before frying. Says it helps the crust.

[weinoo]

On 10/18/2021 at 11:19 PM, patrickamory said:

To New Yorkers and visitors, please try Katsu-hama on E. 47 Street between Fifth & Madison. Sublime tonkatsu, chicken or pork. If you eat pork, I recommend the Berkshire.

 

Indeed one of my favorite places. Can get crowded at lunch. They actually served the fried protein on a metal grate so as not to soggy it up.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

12 hours ago, gfweb said:

Michael Symon rests his breaded (chicken) cutlets 30 min before frying. Says it helps the crust.

I tend toward this only out of convenience in prep progress.

[liuzhou]

12 hours ago, gfweb said:

Michael Symon rests his breaded (chicken) cutlets 30 min before frying. Says it helps the crust.

 

I do that with all breaded items. I'm convinced it helps achieve a better crust.

[gfweb]

I guess the mechanism might be to dry out the egg component and tighten-up the breading.

 

More experimentation is needed.