What is Pork Katsu?
Pork katsu is a crispy and deep fried food. Pork cutlets are coated in flour, seasonings and panko breadcrumbs and deep fried until the meat is tender and the breading is golden and crunchy. Katsu can be served plain, or on sandwiches and in various dishes.
What does Pork Katsu Taste Like?
Salty is one of the five main tastes. It has a satisfying and addictive quality with hints of sourness. Salty foods include cheeses, cured meats, chips, and olives. It is used in almost every dish and prepared food. Salt is added to enhance flavor and offer a distinctly salty taste.
Umami is one of five main tastes. It is savory with a depth of flavor. Umami is a taste in many foods, including meat, seafood, beans, and nuts. It is both naturally occurring and created through the specific use of ingredients to create a satisfying taste. Umami is characteristic of proteins and savory dishes.
Ingredients
Pork is a term for any meat that comes from a pig. The main cuts are the shoulder, loin, leg and side belly. Raw pork is pink and often has a white trim of fat, or dots of fat. The texture is moist and and semi-firm. Pork is used to make bacon, sausage, salami and other various meat products. Pork can be bought and used ground, or in specific cuts, such as for pork tenderloin, a delicate cut of meat, with a lower fat content. Pork is known for being a fatty meat and has a full flavor that is enhanced by salt and spices. Pork should always be cooked thoroughly before consuming.
Vegetable oil is obtained by extracting oil from seeds. Types of vegetable oil include canola, sunflower, corn, and safflower. Light and with a neutral taste, vegetable oils are used to fry foods, or can be used to lightly coat meats and vegetables before roasting. Vegetable oils are also used as ingredients in salad dressings and sauces.
Panko breadcrumbs are made from a crustless white bread, cooked using an electric current rather than an oven. The bread is then ground into slivers, rather than round crumbs. Panko has an airy and crisp texture, and is less oily than regular breadcrumbs. When deep fried, panko absorbs less oil than batters or other breadcrumbs. Panko is cream colored and has a flavor that is very mild and bland. It is used to add a crunchy coat to meet, deep fried vegetables and is popular in and on sushi.
Eggs are an incredibly versatile protein and binder. Most eggs used in cooking come from hens and are usually unfertilized. Eggs are oval shaped and roughly 53 mm in length and 40 mm in width. Eggs have a hard, but thin and delicate shell that is brown or white and occasionally green. Inside is the clear and glossy white, with a slimy texture and in the center is the yellow opaque, round shaped yolk. Once cooked, the whites become opaque. Eggs can be scrambled, fried, boiled, and more. They are used in desserts and baked goods as a binder. Egg is also used as a wash to glaze items or dip meat into before breading it. The flavor is mild and sulfurous. It has many uses.
Salt is a mineral composed mostly of sodium chloride. It is the main flavoring used in food and is naturally occurring in certain foods, such as cheese, beets, meat and celery, plus many others. Salt is white and has finer granules than sugar. Many commercial salts include iodide, while others exclude it. Most salts are white, while some are naturally pale pink with minerals. Salt brings out the flavor of something and can create a tangy mouthfeel, if used in excess.
The peppercorn plant grows in tropical climate and produces tiny black fruit. The fruit is dried and become hard. At this point it is ground into a textured powder comprised of black and grey dots. It has a flavor that is spicy, pungent and sharp. Pepper is an extremely popular spice, especially in Western cuisines and lends a gentle heat to dishes. There are different varieties of black pepper and the flavor changes subtly because of this.
