Tonkatsu sauce: what it is, composition, taste, what to eat with

Tonkatsu sauce is worth the attention of every housewife and every cook: its taste is so pleasant and unusual that with it even simple cutlets will become a sophisticated Japanese delicacy. Tonkatsu is an unusual sauce; you can’t easily buy it in the supermarket. But this doesn’t mean you can’t make the sauce at home yourself. It’s possible, and we’ll learn how to do it today!

Even if you are not an ardent fan of traditional Japanese cuisine, you will most likely love tonkatsu sauce: its bright taste and characteristic aroma are impossible to forget, and the meat with it turns out simply amazing. Dark, sweetish-spicy, viscous - it enhances appetite and gives dishes a delicate taste and a very noble aftertaste.

Let's find out what kind of sauce this is, why it is so loved all over the world, and can it be prepared in an ordinary home kitchen?

Tonkatsu sauce: what is it?

Tonkatsu sauce with cutlet
The most beautiful word tonkatsu in Japanese consists of two roots, and means “pork cutlet”. Initially, this dish was actually called pork schnitzel, fried in breadcrumbs. It was served with vegetables and rice, and topped with a dark sweet and sour dressing, which made the dish taste simply amazing.

Over time, the sauce itself began to be called by this name and it turned into a proper name. And the original recipe for the dressing spread all over the world and was widely loved by everyone. And even in Japan, where they like to strictly adhere to traditions and do not like experiments, over time they began to use it more widely: with chicken, burgers, ham, beef. And all over the world, gravy began to be used even more boldly, and added to fish and vegetable dishes.

The sauce has a soft and spicy taste, a recognizable aroma and an appetizing appearance. No wonder everyone loves him so much!

Tonkatsu sauce: composition

Tonkatsu with cabbage rolls
Once upon a time, a Japanese chef took it and added a little applesauce to Worcestershire sauce. The result was an unusual taste: with the characteristic spiciness of Worcestershire, but with apple softness and fruity freshness. The mixture went well with the fried pork, and thus the famous tonkatsu was born!

But the Japanese are the world's most famous perfectionists, so it didn't end there. Through complex, almost jewelry-like experiments, the sauce acquired a unique composition. Now it contains:

Apples, carrots and onions;
A little vinegar, corn syrup and mustard;
Sugar;
Sake or Japanese wine;
Tomato ketchup;
Soy sauce;
Worcestershire

Here is an unusual tonkatsu sauce: the composition is quite multi-component and complex. But the taste is truly rich!

By the way, despite the conservatism of Japanese cuisine and fanatical loyalty to traditions, tonkatsu is not prepared one hundred percent the same anywhere. Each chef has his own secret recipe, all housewives experiment with proportions and even replace some components with others. So there are several recipes, and we will find out from them!

How to Serve Tonkatsu

As you know, the most common filling for tonkatsu is sweet and sour tonkatsu sauce. Some restaurants also add mustard and a couple of slices of lemon.

Most often, the pork cutlet is already cut into strips to make it easier to eat. It is enjoyed with chopsticks in Asia or with a fork and knife in Western restaurants.

Since pork is deep-fried, it requires light side dishes that won't be hard on the digestive system.

The most common side dish is raw shredded cabbage. But many people also enjoy short-grain white rice and pickled vegetables (tsukemono).

Another common tonkatsu combination is a delicious miso soup that is light and filling on the stomach.

There are also regional differences, and tonkatsu is eaten differently in these places.

For example, in some areas, pork cutlets are coated with a dollop of curry. It combines the sweet and spicy flavors of curry with crispy breaded pork.

In Nagoya, tonkatsu is topped with miso sauce and ponzu (citrus) sauce.

Tonkatsu sauce: what do you eat with?

Sauce with rice, cutlet
As has already been noted, this thick sauce has a pleasant sweet and sour taste and a soft, viscous consistency. This means that it is almost universal: like soy sauce or tomato ketchup, it can be served with any homemade dishes.

In Japan, it is eaten with cutlets and schnitzels: chicken, pork, beef. Also served with burgers, rice, and even added to miso soup. But still the main use is with fried meat, hot and crispy.

But if you don’t get attached to national Japanese traditions, then this thick dark dressing can absolutely be put on the table when serving chicken or fish from the oven, grilled meat, fried homemade sausages, cutlets and schnitzels, fried vegetables and rice. The sauce is cold, served in gravy boats or poured directly onto the dish in a plate.

Cooking method

Add a teaspoon of water to the egg and stir.
We cut out the thin, sinewy layers between the meat and fat with a knife or scissors. When frying, make sure that the meat does not curl. If the meat is from the shoulder part, you can lightly beat it with a rolling pin. If you use beef instead of pork, the frying time must be reduced.
Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper, roll well in pastry flour, dip in the egg, and coat thoroughly in breadcrumbs.

Photo: nippon.com

Pour about 3 cm of oil into the frying pan and heat it to 160 degrees (when the breadcrumbs in the oil form foam around themselves). Add the meat, fry for 3 minutes, turn over, fry for another 3 minutes.

Photo: nippon.com

Increase the heat to 180 degrees (thrown breadcrumbs bounce off the oil with a bang) and fry for another minute. Remove any flour that falls off during frying using a steel sieve.
After frying, place the meat on a wire mesh or paper towels to remove excess oil. If the meat is 1.5 cm thick, leave it for five minutes, then place it in a still hot frying pan. For meat 1 cm thick you need less than 4 minutes, 2.5 cm - 7-8 minutes.
We cut the cabbage into thin strips and place it on plates, place the tonkatsu next to it, having previously cut it into pieces. Pour over the sauce and serve with lemon to taste.

When frying in a lot of oil, an oil pan like this can come in handy. You can also store used oil in it - you can fry it 3-4 times (photo nippon.com)

Cooking features

What complex components! Worcestershire, sake, a little onion... probably every stage of preparation is important here - fry the vegetables, steam the apples, boil the soy sauce, and watch the stopwatch so as not to spoil the exotic product...

No, don’t be alarmed: it’s not like that at all! Making real tonkatsu at home is easier than frying an omelette. Everything is really so simple that you can’t even believe it!

All solid components - vegetables, apples, onions - are cleaned, all hard and inedible parts, stems, peels, cores, and seeds are removed. All this is cut and ground in a blender. By the way, you only need a little bit of fruit and vegetables so that the sauce is not too thick.

Next, the pulp of vegetables and fruits is simply mixed with all the liquid ingredients: sake, Worcestershire and soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar. Sugar is poured. Mix everything carefully with a whisk - without sudden movements or excessive energy.

The finished mixture needs to be left in the refrigerator for three hours... and that’s it! Agree, it couldn’t be simpler. It turns out very tasty and unusual!

Recipe for the classic tonkatsu meat dish

Classic tonkatsu
So, let's try to travel back to Japan and cook real tonkatsu: pork with the famous sauce! You will be able to surprise the most capricious guests, and your family will be wildly delighted with such a treat.

The calorie content of the dish is 490 kcal.

Ingredients:

Pork (neck, tenderloin, loin) – 700 gr.;
Corn or wheat flour – 2 tbsp;
Breadcrumbs – 2-3 tbsp;
Raw egg – 1 pc.;
Vegetable oil - for frying;
Tomato ketchup – 100 ml;
Apple - half;
Carrot - a small piece;
Sugar – 2 tbsp;
Soy sauce – 4 tbsp;
Worcestershire sauce - 3 tbsp;
Sake or rice wine – 3 tbsp;
Onion – a piece, about 1/5 of a head;
Garlic – 1 clove;
Cinnamon, chili, nutmeg, ginger - a pinch each.

Step by step recipe:

First, let's prepare the dressing. Take an apple, carrot, garlic and onion, and puree with a blender into a paste.
Place the fruit and vegetable slurry in a bowl. Add sugar and spices.
Pour in all the liquid ingredients: wine or sake, Worcestershire, soy and tomato sauces.
Just mix all the ingredients and leave for at least an hour in the refrigerator to brew.
Let's make schnitzel. Rinse the pork, dry it and cut it into large pieces 2-3 cm thick.
Beat each piece thoroughly with a kitchen hammer. Add some salt and pepper.
Mix flour with breadcrumbs in a plate and add egg.
Dip the meat into this mixture and fry in a large amount of vegetable oil.

The dish is ready! Pour cold dressing over hot meat and serve immediately. And as a side dish - rice, raw or stewed vegetables, or just pita bread. Delicious!

Tonkatsu - Japanese schnitzel

In Japan, as you know, there are many one-dish restaurants. That is, those whose menu contains literally one or two types of food. This could be sushi, ramen, yakitori or, for example, tonkatsu. Tonkatsu, literally “pork cutlet,” is a dish borrowed from European cuisine, Japaneseized, and has become very popular.

It is usually eaten accompanied by fresh cabbage and a couple of sauces, which are discussed below. The combination, at first glance, is unusual and may not seem very interesting to some. However, believe me, it is in this combination and precisely with these sauces that a generally simple schnitzel will sparkle for you with new and unexpected facets.

You will need:

Boneless pork loin Flour Egg, 1 piece Japanese panko breading Salt and black pepper Vegetable oil for frying Fresh cabbage Japanese mayonnaise Tonkatsu sauce Prepare the schnitzel - take the cutlet and, covering it with cling film, beat it until flat, about 0.5 cm thick or less .

Salt and pepper the meat, then roll it in flour. Add it to a lightly beaten egg.

In order for the dish to turn out exactly Japanese, 3 main ingredients
. One of them is panko bread crumbs. With any other breading, homemade or store-bought, the schnitzel will turn out uninteresting and un-Japanese.
And panko is now quietly sold in many stores. Looks like that:
Roll the schnitzel in panko. Fry in refined vegetable oil until golden.
And most importantly - 2 necessary sauces
- Japanese mayonnaise and a sauce called “tonkatsu”. Japanese mayonnaise differs in taste from both its Russian counterparts and world brands. Of course, it is different from home.
Most of all, according to my personal feelings, it is similar to French, but there are still nuances in taste that distinguish it. I won’t speculate or try to guess what this is connected with, but the fact remains a fact.

Japanese mayonnaise is also sold in stores now, but if you really can’t find it, then Korean mayonnaise will do as a last resort.

Tonkatsu sauce is a sweet and sour brown sauce made from vegetables, apple and a few other ingredients. It is used not only for tonkatsu itself, but also for other dishes, for example, fried yakisoba noodles.

You can prepare it yourself, and if anyone is interested, I can tell you how. It’s easier, however, to also buy it in a store - it’s sold in many places.

All that remains is to serve the dish. In Japan, it is customary to cut ready-made tonkatsu into strips approximately 1 cm wide.

After which the schnitzel is poured with sauce on top, the more the better. The cabbage should be thinly sliced, preferably young and green. The top of the cabbage is doused with, dare I say it, mayonnaise.

It is clear, of course, that the amount of mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce is a matter of taste; I like more of both in this case. Well, boiled Japanese rice will add additional balance to the dish.

Bon appetit!

Source: https://mr-gaijin.livejournal.com/34612.html

Simple tonkatsu sauce recipe

Tonkatsu with turkey
There is an alternative recipe for tonkatsu sauce: even simpler, adapted to “our” cuisine and with more affordable ingredients. Quick, simple and incredibly delicious, try it!

Its calorie content is 117 kcal.

Components:

Soy sauce – 4 tbsp;
Ketchup – 4 tbsp;
Apple cider vinegar – 1 tbsp;
Plum wine, sweet – 2 tbsp;
Apple - half;
Carrot - a small piece;
Dried garlic - a pinch;
Cinnamon, paprika, dried ginger, nutmeg - a whisper;
Sugar – 2 tbsp;
Olive oil – 1 tsp.

Recipe:

Peel the apple and carrot and puree it in a blender.
Pour soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar and wine, and a little oil into the apple and carrot puree.
Add sugar, spices and herbs.
Mix everything with a whisk, without beating too hard.

Place the mixture in the refrigerator and serve after 2-3 hours. Enjoy!

Innings

In Japanese cuisine, it is customary to serve tonkatsu sauce with fried pork. Therefore, any other dishes made from this meat will taste better with tonkatsu. It can also be served with beef, chicken, roast duck or other poultry.

The aromatic vegetable sauce is perfect for a variety of seafood - shrimp, mussels, squid. In any form, seafood can be seasoned with this gravy, giving their mild taste a bright touch. The sauce goes well with fish.
You can use tonkatsu to season vegetable salads and appetizers, replacing, for example, vinegar or lemon juice.

It is recommended to store the finished tonkatsu sauce in the refrigerator for no more than 2 weeks, after pouring it into a dark glass container.

Bon Appetit!

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Homemade tonkatsu sauce: composition and preparation

Tonkatsu sauce, options
And another tonkatsu recipe: quick, quite simple, but at the same time multi-component and very rich in taste. You will really like it, and your guests will be amazed!

Calorie content – 108 kcal.

Ingredients:

Soy sauce – 3 tbsp;
Liquid honey – 3 tbsp;
Chili powder – a small pinch;
Olive oil – 2 tsp;
Sake or white plum wine – 3 tbsp;
Apple cider vinegar – 1 tbsp;
Apple - half;
White onion – 1/5 head;
Garlic – 1 clove;
Ginger root - a small piece, about the size of the phalanx of the little finger;
Orange juice – 1 tbsp;
Mustard – 1 tsp;
Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, paprika - a pinch each.

Step by step recipe:

Don't let the list of components scare you, everything is very easy and simple. Take a small piece of carrot, onion, garlic, ginger. Clean everything and grind it in a blender into a soft puree.
To the puree, add butter, sugar and spices and all the other ingredients: just pour everything into a bowl and that's it.
Mix with a spoon and place in the refrigerator.

After 2-3 hours, remove the sauce and stir thoroughly. All is ready!