Tonkatsu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tonkatsu (豚カツ, とんかつ, or トンカツ), invented in the 1930s, is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. It consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick, and is generally served with shredded cabbage. The etymology of the word is "ton" (pig) + "katsu," a shortened pronunciation of "cutlet" ("katsuretsu"). It is eaten with a brown sauce called Tonkatsu Sauce (トンカツソース), commonly called "sauce", the ingredients of which vary from place to place but which usually has a taste similar to Worcestershire sauce or Kansas City-style barbeque sauce. In Nagoya, tonkatsu is eaten with a miso-based sauce. Some people also like to eat their tonkatsu with a spicy yellow mustard or soy sauce.
When ordering tonkatsu, diners generally specify either a pork fillet (ヒレ, hire) or roast pork loin (ロース, rosu) cut. Prices for a tonkatsu vary from 198 yen for a pre-cooked tonkatsu available in a supermarket to over 5000 yen in an expensive restaurant. The finest tonkatsu is made from kuro buta (black pig) from Kagoshima prefecture, in southern Japan.
Variations on tonkatsu may be made by sandwiching an ingredient like cheese or shiso leaf between the meat, and then breading and frying. For the calorie conscious, konnyaku is sometimes sandwiched between the meat. And in Waseda, Tokyo, a restaurant serves a tonkatsu with a bar of chocolate sandwiched inside, sometimes compared to a Western creation: the Deep fried Mars bar.
Similarly breaded and fried chicken is sometimes sold, called "Chicken Katsu" (チキンカツ). This variant often appears in Hawaiian plate lunches.
In Korea, this dish is known as donkkaseu (돈까스), a simple transliteration of the Japanese word to Korean.
See also Katsudon, Wiener schnitzel
