43 recipes. Page 1 of 2
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In yoshoku, the Western-style cooking Japan developed after the Meiji era, fried shrimp come out long and straight with the tail on. The straightness comes from three or four shallow cuts on the belly side and a press with the palm before breading. The panko is laid on lightly rather than pressed, and tartar sauce or tonkatsu sauce goes alongside.
These small Filipino rolls get their slightly gritty, crumbly surface from breadcrumbs pressed onto the tops before baking. Underneath, a milk, butter, and egg dough tears into soft strands, with only mild sweetness. When the butter first goes in, the dough turns slippery; that is normal, and further kneading brings it back to smooth and stretchy.
Cut one open and the mozzarella in the center stretches out of a crisp, amber breadcrumb shell. The risotto is used cold, mixed with Parmesan and worked until the grains cling together, which lets it close around the cheese without cracking.
Vienna sausages coated in pancake-mix batter and pressed breadcrumbs fry up into hot dogs small enough for one bite. A 30-second blanch strips surface fat from the sausages so the batter grips instead of sliding.
Ground beef and pork are combined two to one and worked in one direction for more than three minutes, until the mix sticks to the hands and turns smooth; that stickiness gives the thick patties their firm bite. The onion is minced fine and pressed lightly, leaving it a little moist rather than wrung dry.
Ground beef seasoned like bulgogi, with soy sauce, sugar, and garlic, simmers in a tomato sauce, where the sweet-salty soy meets the acidity of the tomatoes. Searing the meatballs first leaves a browned crust that melts into the sauce and deepens it. Breadcrumbs and egg hold moisture, so the meatballs stay tender through the simmer instead of drying out.
Small beef meatballs are browned only on the outside, then finish cooking in an onion and tomato sauce with a little paprika. The sauce tastes fuller after a day, so it can be made ahead and served with bread or rice.
Tonkatsu sauce goes on one slice of bread and mayonnaise on the other, with a thick pork cutlet and finely shredded cabbage in between. The cabbage has to be dried well first, or it soaks the bread.
Seasoned pork sausage meat, mixed with finely chopped onion, breadcrumbs and Dijon mustard, is rolled up in puff pastry for this British bakery snack. The meat is mixed briefly by hand so it stays tender, and shallow cuts across the top of each piece let steam escape as it bakes.
Breaded pork loin fried to a deep golden brown is sliced thick and set beside a Japanese curry made sweet with well-browned onion and carrot. Where the curry touches the cutlet the crust softens while the rest stays crunchy, and each bite shifts between the two. Panko pressed firmly all the way to the edges keeps the coating from peeling away in the oil. The curry base cooks in a little of the reserved frying oil rather than fresh fat.
A skewered sausage gets a log of chilled cream cheese pressed alongside, then batter and breadcrumbs before frying. The batter has to cover the cheese right to the ends, and frozen cream cheese runs even less. Under the crumb shell, the cheese melts and comes through with the sausage in each bite.
Anchovy fillets melt into garlicky olive oil until they disappear, leaving salt and savor with no fishy edge, and gochugaru, Korean chili flakes, adds a warm heat to that oil. Broccolini cooks in the pasta pot during the last minutes so it stays crisp and slightly bitter, and pan-toasted breadcrumbs give the soft, ear-shaped orecchiette something crunchy to play against. The crumbs are kept aside and scattered on just before serving so they stay crisp.
Pounded chicken breast rolled around ham and Emmental, breaded and pan-fried in butter and oil, shows a ring of melted cheese in every slice. Tucking in any exposed cheese keeps it from leaking into the pan.
Fine panko fries into a firm crust on a thick pork cutlet, and with soft white bread on either side, every bite has both crunch and give. The bread is spread with tonkatsu sauce, the shredded cabbage is tossed in mayonnaise, and the sandwich is wrapped tightly in plastic for a few minutes before it is cut.
A freshly fried pork cutlet is warmed briefly in sweet tsuyu broth with onion and bound with softly set egg, so the underside soaks up broth while the top keeps some crunch. Nicking the sinew along the edge of the loin before breading stops the meat from curling, letting it lie flat over the rice.
Pork loin is pounded to an even thickness, breaded and fried twice, then sliced over shredded cabbage that has been crisped in cold water. The sweet cutlet sauce is poured over the top just before eating.
Slice into the breaded chicken and melted garlic-parsley butter runs out from the center. The butter is frozen into a firm cylinder before it is wrapped, so it survives the cooking. The pan only browns the crust, and the oven at 190°C finishes the inside.
Mashed potato mixed with sauteed ground beef and onion gets shaped into ovals, coated in panko, and fried until golden. The crust shatters while the inside stays fluffy and potato-forward, plainer and heartier than cream-filled croquettes. Worcestershire or tonkatsu sauce goes on top, and in Japan butcher shops and delis sell them freshly fried to eat on the go. Fillings vary widely, from curry to crab cream to kabocha squash.
Flat fish cake sheets are folded zigzag onto a skewer, battered, breaded and fried. It is nothing like the soft eomuk skewers served in broth: this one is crunchy, finished with ketchup and mustard and eaten in hand.
Thin chicken cutlets in a Parmesan-laced crumb crust are shallow-fried in olive oil and finished with a squeeze of lemon while still hot. An even thickness matters, because a thick spot stays underdone in the middle while the crust overbrowns.
Under a thick coat of coarse panko is a mix of ground pork and beef much like a hamburger steak, and cutting in lets out the juices the crust held. In Tokyo, neighborhood butchers have long fried them every day for the display case, and eating one hot from the paper bag on the street is an old habit.
Small cubes of raw potato are pressed onto the batter before frying, which leaves the surface knobbly. Those cubes have to cook through in the oil, so the heat stays at medium-low and the hotdog keeps rolling slowly. Inside, mozzarella sits beside the sausage and pulls into long strings when you break it open.
The crumb coating has to survive a second round of heat, since the crisp cutlet is covered with tomato sauce and mozzarella and returned to the oven. Resting the breaded cutlets for 5 minutes lets the crumbs bond to the meat and keeps them from sliding off under the sauce. Pounding the breast to 1.5 cm or less matters for a similar reason: an even cutlet browns on both sides before either one burns. Cut through it and you get crunch, juicy chicken, tangy sauce, and stretchy cheese in one bite.
King oyster mushrooms are cut lengthwise into wide slabs 1.5 cm thick and breaded like tonkatsu, and the thickness gives them a meaty chew without any meat. Like the pork version, they go to the table with tonkatsu sauce.