How to Make the Best Crispy Pan-Fried Chicken Cutlets and Miso-Marinated Salmon

[Music] today on America's Test Kitchen Bridget and Julia uncover the secrets to crispy pan-fried chicken cutlets Adam reveals his top big percent tofu knives and Keith makes Bridget foolproof Geisel marinated salmon it's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen [Music] in the world of breaded chicken cutlets of one style stands head and shoulders above the rest for having the lightest Crispus coating it's the Japanese style chicken cutlet known as chicken katsu and today we're gonna show you how to make it yeah I don't care what you call it there's super crispy I love that really light coating that's on the exterior very different from how we bread our traditional chicken cutlets which can be a little bit heavy so let's start on the breading we are using Japanese breadcrumbs or a panko you can see they're very very light but they're uneven in size and this can cause a little bit of a problem some of them will stick to the chicken some of it won't also it'll Brown at different rates so we're gonna even things out and this is 2 cups of panko and put this right into a little bag well I've also noticed over the years that the brand of panko can make a big difference and how even or uneven the crumb size is so this is almost making this more foolproof absolutely good point let's get the air out and seal this up Oh take out your aggression time not too much actually unfortunately I'm not gonna bash this but I am gonna use a rolling pin to kind of roll back and forth and make this really nice and fine the whole mixture so it'll be even in size all right so any pieces that are still big this is a very technical way to do it I like to take the end of my rolling pin and just bump it how about that Skippy's comes into a shallow dish you can use a cake plate or we've got pie plates here and move on down to eggs now this is two eggs obviously we want to add a little bit of salt it's a teaspoon of salt can I'll whisk this together that is the entire breading now often we'll start with flour yeah no chicken you dip it in flour and then the egg and then the crumbs a classic pound breading exactly and the idea is that the flour and the egg form a glue and it does but we found with this really light bread crumbs like panko we did not need that heavy glue to get it to adhere so it's gonna make for a much lighter coating uh-huh the key is to not use flour that's right it's what we're not doing that's really important no flour we want the cutlets to be very very thin we started off with four boneless skinless chicken breasts each weigh about six to eight ounces apiece and we're gonna split these into so it's a good idea to start at the thicker in and also any of these little pieces of fat I'm just gonna trim away at this point so you want to hold the knife parallel to your cutting board in that way it's going to cut through the chicken into even pieces flat hand on top and what I like to do is I like to start going at kind of at a little angle at first and as I go through kind of peel back the chicken in that way I can get it right in half and we do want to even these up a little bit more so I'll take a piece of plastic and just give these a little bit of a light pound just even the meat even more they'll cook more evenly we want to get everything pretty close to each other so it's very simple to do and the eggs are seasoned so we don't need to season the chicken itself we're gonna put one of the cutlets right in there let any excess egg come right off and then into the breadcrumbs and I like to use one hand for the breadcrumbs and one hand to keep for the eggs otherwise you end up with one giant meatball and I'm pressing the crumbs in just so that they adhere and now this is going onto a rimmed baking sheet while we do the remaining two the egg wash into the crumbs there we go and now we'll just do the rest of them alright we're just about ready to cook cutlets look beautiful they do make a sauce in the mean time now this is traditional with katsu whether it's pork or chicken this is called tonkatsu sauce and it starts with the most magical ingredient ever invented which is ketchup I love ketchup it's sweet its sour its tangy and it's red this is my favorite and it's already in the fridge that's right so this is a quarter cup of ketchup I've got two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce two teaspoons of soy sauce give it a little deeper flavor and plenty of seasoning and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard whisk this together let's go back and start cooking those cutlets we're gonna cook these in two batches obviously we could not fit all of these into the pan all at once so one of the problems when you're shallow frying is getting a really good gauge of how hot the oil is if it's too hot those breadcrumbs will burn and if it's not hot enough they'll just start to soak up the grease the oil and they'll be too greasy yeah nailing the temperature is tricky when you have such quick-cooking cutlet absolutely I'm gonna pour 1/4 cup of vegetable oil and this is something that my grandmother used to do when she was frying anything she'd take a bread cube she put it in the oil and then heat them up together and the bread cube turned brown she knew that the oil was perfect similarly we have a little bit more panko here just sprinkle a little bit in there and I turn this to medium-high and now we're gonna keep an eye on that panko when it gets good and golden brown well no that's the oil is perfect for cooking our cutlets all right you can see that the breadcrumbs getting a little bit of color there such a simple trick makes such a big difference here foolproof let's go ahead and put in four cutlets I have to kind of squidge them together that's a technical term but they will shrink as they cook so now we're gonna keep an eye on the heat we want these to brown on that first side about two to three minutes actually the total cooking time is four to six minutes two to three minutes per side so we'll wait we'll keep an eye on it make sure it's not browning too fast and then we'll turn them in a couple of minutes all right let's take a look at these beautiful color oh yeah that's gorgeous that's what a chicken cutlet should look like absolutely and it's always a good idea to kind of move these around in the pan as you need cuz your pan might have some hotter spots and cooler spots we're gonna let this go another two to three minutes on the second side all right let's take a look at that second side oh nice color texture perfect so these are ready to come out of the pan and we're putting them on paper towels the paper towels are going to wick away any excess oil and moisture and also we have the paper towels over a wire rack we don't want to put these on a solid surface because if we did the undersides would steam and that is just not good so we have a lot of spent breadcrumbs in here if we were to add more oil and the rest of the chicken cutlets at this point there's bread crumbs would get totally burnt oh I know it's such a bummer you think you're just saving time really you're ruining the second batch so I'll just go ahead and swipe this out with some paper towels and now another quarter cup of oil and we're gonna do the same thing all right let's get the second batch out of the skillet mm-hmm again on the paper towel rack here I've got one more thing to do here if you wouldn't mind just seasoning the cutlets with a little bit of weather or nice and warm so this salt really sticks that's exactly right so I'm going to slice these into half-inch slices and this is optional you can do this or you can just give people a whole cutlet go ahead and layer this right over some white rice that's also traditional can't forget that beautiful tonkatsu sauce whew love it when it's easy yes and it's so crispy and light that coding is just feathery it's really light so much crumbly yeah you know it doesn't have that big bound breading coating that you get when you add flour at first it's gossamer-thin is I like to say I like that katsu sauce it's almost a little barbecue flavor it was a little bit yep this is delicious thank you it's an easy dinner for the ultimate breaded chicken cutlet strike chicken katsu after cutting and pounding out thin cutlets dip them an egg followed by crushed panko then use a pinch of the leftover bread crumbs to tell you when oil is just right for frying and served with a sweet tangy tonkatsu sauce and there you have it from America's Test Kitchen to your kitchen a terrific recipe for crispy pan-fried chicken cutlets [Music] santoku reportedly means three virtues some people say it's meat fish and vegetables other people say it's chopping slicing and dicing or maybe it means my favorite knife because it is absolutely my favorite blade in the kitchen and today Adams gonna tell me which brand is best you know Julia said toka were developed in Japan as an alternative to a classic vegetable cleaver ah and let me show you the differences between a western-style chef's knife and a santoku number one the blade on a santoku tends to be around five to seven inches so it's a little shorter than our favorite 8 inch chef's knife number two the profile is a little boxier and a little taller and number three the tip is what they call a sheepsfoot tip it's a little turned down as opposed to the really sharp sort like point on a chef's knife we tested santoku a long time ago we came up with a favorite it's this guy the Mack but since then these knives have just soared in popularity and pretty much every major knife maker has their own santoku knife and that got us curious we wanted to do another test so we assembled this lineup of 10-cent oak knives the price range was between about $20 $200 and you know we chose blades that were all around 6 inches long because a lot of experts say that really you want to stick to soft vegetables or boneless meats when you're working with a santoku knife but we were curious as to whether they could handle anything any kitchen tasks that we would throw at a regular chef's knife okay we minced herbs we diced onions yeah we butchered whole chickens breaking them down serving pieces cut apart hard butternut squash and then there was some precision work also really thin little carrot matchsticks and also thin slices of semi frozen beef to use in Vietnamese fog and we had a testing brigade of novice cooks expert cooks cooks with big hands small hands righties lefties and then we're looking for overall sharpness performance comfort everything that you really want in any knife being santoku or otherwise now let's talk first about blade geometry all right classically in a Western knife or an American knife the angle at which the metal comes down to the cutting edge is it about 20 degrees whereas for an asian knife it's a little taller and narrower it's about 15 degrees and that translates into a thinner cutting edge and more sharpness working in tandem with the sharpness is the overall mass of the blade and one way to get a handle on that is to use a caliper to measure the very top of the blade called the spine let's step down and do a little chopping right now all right why don't you try this santoku first okay oh it's a little clumsy this handle is quite thick it doesn't feel as agile like I could really move it around like I want to okay that's interesting try this ii sent oka here which is our old winner of the mac oh yeah light airy agile I love this knife so this is interesting they feel really different yeah they do have slight differences in the thickness of the spine the first one was two point one seven millimeters the second one was one point nine seven nothing it doesn't sound like much but it sounds like it feels like okay different yeah it really does translate to feel and all of the testers favorite knives had spine wits of two millimeters or less while we're down here let's talk about blade curvature a little bit all right you know in chef's knives the blade the cutting edge is a little bit curved for that rocking motion when you're doing some mincing why don't you try the old favorite chef's knife there yep five rocks yep rocks really nicely so I can just graze over the top of the parsley okay now why don't you give it a shot with the santoku that's there which normally in my experience don't rocks oh well exactly they have straighter edges like a cleaver this actually rocks pretty well as san-tomás have developed and more makers are coming up with their models they're giving the blade a little more curvature so that western coats can use them more comfortably for that rocking like this one works doesn't it done and then the last thing I want to talk about in terms of the blade it's just this sheeps foot tip you know most of our testers are used to working with a chef's knife that has that sword like pointed to so at first this turndown sheepsfoot tip felt a little bit awkward to some testers but as they got through the testing as they got accustomed to the knives they were able to adjust their cutting techniques and it became kind of a non-issue yeah just a little bit of a learning curve the handle of a knife is never a non-issue it's got to be comfortable our Ghana mists have this phrase called affordance and that means a set of design characteristics that makes it comfortable for a wide range of hands in a wide range of positions why don't you check out this knife here the middle one all right well you know what it feels a little slick a little slippery and if it was a hot day or my hands were wet I would be a little worried about my hand slipping around exactly that was too hard it was too slippery and just as you say if your hands got wet or greasy you could be in trouble with that testers like a softer material that was easier to grip why don't you try this one now see what you think of that all right wow this guy is really big I mean it's almost like a baseball bat yeah there's no way I could be agile in fact I find myself almost using my whole arm I can't even just use my forearm no that's not good yeah and again that's exactly what testers thought if the handle felt too bulky in their hands it wasn't comfortable now why don't you try this one laughs all right oh this one's silky I mean it's light I like it the handle it's not too big it's not too small I don't have to grip it too hard it's not pinching anywhere oh this is a goodie not only is it a goodie it's our new winner that is the Misano u x10 7-inch santoku not an inexpensive winner that knife is a hundred and seventy $9.50 just shy of 180 well worth it in my opinion comfortable sharp our testers loved it you know we still stand behind our old winner and it is now our Best Buy knife if you don't want to spend the big bucks on them so no this is the Mac superior six and a half inch santoku it's $74.95 a lot more reasonable and we still love this yeah it's a great knife if you're willing to invest in a really great santoku check out the Misano UX 10 santoku 7 inch at a hundred and seventy $9.50 [Music] much of Japanese cuisine utilizes miso paste it's incredibly savory and it's used to season soups and sauces but today Keith is going to show us an elegant dish made with white miso yeah so today we're going to make miso marinated salmon it's a really elegant dish but it's also super easy to make and it has only four ingredients now this is a take on a recipe that was created by Nobu Matsuhisa at his namesake restaurants around the world and it starts with a really flavorful paste that we're gonna put over the salmon you have a half a cup of white miso here white miso or Shiro miso or sweet miso is what we're gonna start with it's the milder sort of nice OHS you can use other types of miso but as they get darker they're gonna be a little bit more flavorful so we like that kind of nice sweet nutty flavor that you get from the white miso to that we're gonna add a quarter cup of white sugar and that's gonna give the marinade a sweetness that's gonna balance off the saltiness from the miso paste we also have three tablespoons of sake that's gonna give marinade a lot of brightness and we have three tablespoons of mirin which is another type of rice wine like the sake but it's a little sweeter and it's gonna marry that sugar saltiness in the marinade and this is it right that's right yeah four ingredients so we're just gonna whisk this together until it's smooth it's not going to be perfectly smooth it's gonna kind of look like savory apple sauce miso is one of those ingredients it's kind of a super ingredient I call it because it adds so much flavor and different types of flavor it's up there with ketchup and my book is being one of the perfect ingredients so you can see this is fairly smooth now we're gonna move on to our fish okay at Nobu they use a black cod which is a white fish it has a really rich silky texture but for most people it's hard to find we're gonna use salmon similar rich texture and flavor but everybody can find it we want for six to eight ounce belays but instead of going out and buying four random pieces that are gonna cook at separate times we're gonna start with a one and a half a two pound piece of salmon cut from the center of the fish but before we cut this we kind of want to make sure we want to run our finger over this part of the sim and there are what they call pin bones and if they do have a pin bone it you can just take a pair of pliers or tweezers pull that right out it's pretty easy take a chef's knife we're gonna cut it down the center cut those halves into halves again this mutual pace is going to do a couple things as it sits with the salmon it's gonna flavor the fish but also it's gonna change the texture of the salmon so that salt from the miso and the alcohol and the sugar is gonna pull moisture out of that salmon and it's gonna make it denser and Meteor when we go to cook it so it's gonna be a nice contrast so meatiness and soft inside so I'm just gonna take these and dip it in here and this miso paste is really quite thick so it's gonna stick really nicely to that salmon we're just gonna transfer this over to a 9 by 13 baking dish you don't really care about getting it on the skin side of it we're not gonna eat the skin here but you don't have to worry about it if it does get on there no I don't know certainly not so we're just going to put this skin side down I'm just gonna take the rest of this Musil pace and kind of spread it over the top to make sure it's got good coverage here okay I'm just gonna smooth this over so we're gonna have to let this sit for a while we want the salt and that miso paste and the sugars to start to draw that moisture out from the salmon at Nobu they do it for three days but I really can't plan dinner more than a day at in advance so we're gonna let this go for at least 6 hours up to 24 hours overnight is preferable so I'm just gonna put some plastic wrap on this I'm gonna put it in the fridge and we'll come back and cook it all right so let's talk a little bit more about miso miso is made by fermenting soybeans and sometimes grains such as rye barley or rice with a mold called Koji and you'll find three kinds of miso at the supermarket these days and today we're using white Shiro which is actually quite pale golden color it has the shortest fermentation time so the flavor is very mild and then there's red akka which is well balanced with sweet and salty flavors it's a great all-purpose miso to keep in your fridge and then there's dark brown or black ha Cho and it's the most pungent and complex of the three it almost has a flavor that's prune like so depending on your flavor preference you've got a lot of miso to choose from okay the salmon sat overnight and now it's time to cook okay for cooking we looked at some different techniques and the hallmark of this dish is a nice deeply browned burnished exterior and moist interior pan searing didn't work that well it's too much sugar in the outside and it burnt before the inside was done baking worked okay but by the time it was browned it was to cook on the inside so we turned to broiling we used the intense heat of the broiler to quickly Brown the top of this while keeping the inside moist I'm just gonna put some foil on this rack to make cleanup a lot easier you don't want to get that sweet gunk stuck in between that way it's not fun to clean off and now I'm just gonna take this and I'm gonna scrape this off and you can see that the color of the salmon has changed a little bit it's a little bit more translucent it's a lot firmer - it's okay if you have some of this miso paste on here you want to get the majority of it off because it will burn in the oven if you leave too much on you kinda have to do this with your hands to get that miso off you don't want to run this under the sink or under water or use a paper towel I'm just putting these skin side down with about one inch between so they can bake nice and evenly okay so I have the oven rack eight inches from the broiler I've preheated the broiler we're gonna put the salmon underneath there for 8 to 12 minutes until the internal temperature is 125 degrees now we're cooking farm-raised salmon if you're cooking wild Tim and you want to take it to about 120 degrees now broilers also vary from oven oven so you want to make sure to rotate it where we're cooking also the foil is gonna serve as a shield if we find that it's getting too Brown around the edges like we sometimes did we could just take the foil and flip it up over the corner like that and make sure that the edges didn't get burnt Oh oh that's perfect still sizzling from the broiler okay gorgeous so we were lucky we didn't have to use the foil shield here we have this beautifully brown color they're stunning they are s Toronto earthy exactly so I'm just gonna transfer these over to a platter and he's for you oh yes I mean that crust is amazingly beautiful it's almost mahogany I have some lemon wedges here right look at that super juicy oh it's very tender but you're right about that texture so I'm just a little compacted a little bit denser but in a really good way meteor this fish is all about contrast both in flavor and texture you have the nice media outside but it's still really moist and juicy on the inside and the flavors also contrast you have the salty miso you have the bright sake you have the sweet from the sugar and the mirin and a little bit of lemon on top of it it's it's perfect well this was so easy and elegant it's kind of the perfect salmon recipe yep just four ingredients - thanks Kate so our recipe starts with marinating salmon fillets in a potent paste made with white miso sugar sake and mirin right before cooking removed the excess miso paste then broiled the fillets on a foil lined rack so from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen the restaurant worthy miso marinated salmon and you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with our tastings testings and select episodes at our website America's Test Kitchen calm thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later I'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 473,313

Keywords: japanese food, chicken katsu, chicken cutlet, crispy chicken cutlets recipe, chicken cutlet recipes, crispy chicken recipe, chicken katsu recipe, katsu recipe, miso, miso salmon, miso salmon recipe, miso recipes, santoku knife, santoku, santoku review, santoku knife review, equipment review, knife reviews, recipes, americas test kitchen, america's test kitchen

Id: jdO8Yv6HV6Y

Length: 22min 46sec (1366 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2019