Folded Pork Cutlet (Layered Pork Katsu) – Food Wishes

hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with folded pork cutlets that's right they say you should never judge a book by its cover well the same thing goes for pork cutlets since while this appears to be a plain old piece of bread and fried pork thanks to the very simple technique I'm about to show you inside you're gonna find multiple layers of juicy flavorful meats and what I really loved about this recipe besides the amazing taste and texture was as soon as I'd finished it I was already brainstorming like a dozen new versions which is always a great sign so with that let's go ahead and get started by prepping our pork for pounding and what I have here is one fully trimmed pork tenderloin and by fully trimmed we mean any of that silvery skin or other connective tissue has been cut off and these things are gonna weigh about a pound each which means we're gonna get two perfect portions per piece and the first thing we'll need to do is split this right in half lengthwise and we really do want to get this as even as possible so take your time and enjoy the slice and that's it once our tenderloin has been successfully divided in half what we'll do is take that and pound it very thin between two pieces of plastic and I'm not sure it really matters but I do like to start with a cut side up and then using a meat pounder or some other heavy flat object we will thoughtfully pound this out to about an eighth of an inch thick and as usual anytime we're proudly meat we want to start off slow and then once that meat does start to flatten out in a nice uniform way we can be a little more aggressive and as we get closer to our desired thickness we are sort of pounding and pressing from the center out and we will keep doing that until like I said we get something that's about an eighth of an inch thick and then what we're gonna do after the flattening but before the folding is of course the flavoring which I'm going to start by seasoning this with some kosher salt freshly ground black pepper and cayenne that I mixed up beforehand to save time and then once that's been applied I'm gonna go ahead and spread over some Dijon mustard but not very much just a very very thin layer okay I think one of the secrets to this technique is to show a little bit of restraint when it comes to the amounts of the fillings so as you can see I'm doing a very light application and the same thing is going to go for our next ingredients is they grate on a modest the Mount of Monterey Jack cheese which I went with because I wanted something fairly mild and creamy I had a nice white cheddar would also work beautifully here as it would something a little more intense like greer and again i'm showing great restraint here okay i don't want a bunch of melting cheese flowing out when i cut this so basically we're using the cheese here almost like a seasoning that's right we're seasoning with cheese or as we called in the business cheese inning and by doing a very light gradient like this we're gonna add some flavor and moisture without the cheese overwhelming the whole thing but anyway once our porks been cheese in we can go ahead and finish up a little bit of freshly chopped herb in my case i'ma tell you parsley or in your case anything you want I mean you are after all the Nancy Drew of your folded pork katsu and there's no mystery as to what other herbs would work here all right things like rosemary or sage would work nicely but anyway regardless of what we use once that set we'll go ahead and fold this up starting with whatever is the pointiest end and we will fold that in about 1/3 of the way at which point we'll stop and fold the sides in a little bit all right to sort of square this off but also to help keep all our fillings inside and then once that's been accomplished we can give this another fold and if everything goes according to plan we should have just enough meat to fold over the top to complete this nice little neat package of meat but as you know we always want our seam at the bottom so let's go ahead and flip this over so that is in fact the case and then just to make sure we don't have any air pockets we'll grab our meat pounder again and give this a few taps here and there to sort of flatten it out and that's it once our porks been flat and flavored and folded it is now ready to bread but now before we season the outside with our salt pepper and cayenne mixture and then once that's been done we can go ahead and coat this in flour and by the way some people will just season the flour and not season the meat directly but I don't like that method ok I don't trust seasoned flour I never have and I never will so I think it is much better to apply that directly to the meat and then dust with flour but anyway once our meats floured we'll go ahead and transfer that into some beaten egg and we'll toss that around until it completely coated at which point we'll finish this up by coating it in bread crumbs and for this video I use plain regular crumbs but I did want to mention I use panko in an earlier version and I think we like that one better and if you do want something closer to a katsu which is what this is based on panko is probably the way to go as that one did come out a little bit crispier but having said that both were magnificence but anyway I went ahead and did that to both my cutlets and then once breaded you can immediately fry these but as with all breaded things I think it does work better if you let them sit a little while okay either uncovered out at room temp for about ten or fifteen minutes or you can cover those and pop them in the fridge until you're ready to fry but anyway that's going to be up to you and your time management skills and whether you wait or do these immediately we're gonna finish these up by pan frying in some olive oil or the oil of your choice over medium heat for approximately four to five minutes per side or until cooked through and we do want to be careful our oil does not get too hot alright so I said medium but if you have to eventually back that down a little go ahead all right what we want to avoid is our breadcrumbs getting too dark before the inside gets cooked so something to keep an eye on and one pan frying something like this they say you should only turn it once but you know what they say a lot of things and I decided I want to decide to get a little more browning so I did turn mine back over and I'm happy to report nothing bad happened but anyway like I said we'll cook that for about four or five minutes per side until cooked through and then the blog post I'm gonna give you some tips on how to tell personally I just went with the poke test and that's it once I determine mine was pan fry to perfection I went ahead and place that next to a frisée and radish prop salad along with a parsley and cayenne half a lemon and yes this would be amazing with all kinds of sauces but since the inside is so flavorful and juicy and kind of made its own sauce I really do like the simple approach with just the fresh lemon but anyway let me go ahead and cut in so I can show you what's going on and what's going on is this instead of one solid piece of pork we've achieved multiple layers of juicy flavorful meat and above and beyond the obvious advantage of being able to flavor our meat from the inside out we've also I think produced a much more interesting texture all right there's just something about the combination between that be crust and then those thin layers amine side that just takes the pan fried pork cutlet experience up to a whole other level and by the way as you're watching this if you're not already daydreaming about all the different versions you would do using different ingredients well then I've not yet successfully trained you but don't worry we'll get there anyway the point is using this technique there are so many different directions you could go flavor-wise that it almost boggles the mind but anyway that's it what I'm calling folded pork cutlets there are so many incredible and interesting ways to eat pork and this my friends is definitely one of them which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 394,457

Keywords: Pork, Katsu, Cutlet, Folded, crispy, Layered, stuffed, fried, chef, john, food, wishes, meat, cooking, recipe

Id: JrWwFIdsWXg

Length: 7min 49sec (469 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 16 2019