This is the last japanese recipe for a while, I promise! Katsu chicken is not the healthiest of dishes, however it is certainly delicious and popular with a lot of people, even those who don’t usually like japanese food! Basically its fried crumbed chicken cutlet served with rice, japanese mayonaise and katsu sauce. When I’ve bought katsu chicken at restaurants and japanese take-out they almost always use thigh meat, however I generally prefer breast meat as it’s more tender and less greasy so thats what I use in my recipe.
Ingredients
1 cup of short or medium grain rice
1 large chicken breast
Panko - japanese style breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 tbsp of flour
Japanese Mayonaise
Katsu Sauce
Cooking Oil
Cook the rice in a rice cooker, stovetop or in the microwave as preferred and set aside. I actually use the microwave because our rice cooker is getting old and needs replacing. I put 1 cup of rice in a bowl with 1 1/2 cups of water and microwave it for ten minutes on high. This may vary depending on your microwave however.
Using a sharp knife, fillet the chicken breast to create two thin pieces. Beat the egg and put it in a bowl, have a seperate bowl or plate for both the flour and the panko. Panko are japanese style breadcrumbs, they’re larger than the normal western sort and made from white bread. You should be able to pick them up from an asian grocery store, or you can even make your own if you have the time, I’ve done it before.
Dust the fillets in the flour making sure they are covered completely with a light coating. Next dip them in the egg and then quickly in to the panko. The egg should make the breadcrumbs stick all over. Once you have prepared both pieces this way set them aside.
Fill the bottom of your frypan with cooking oil, I use canola, until it is about 1/2 a cm deep. You want to have the heat on about medium so that the panko doesn’t burn before the chicken has time to cook through. To test if the oil is hot enough, drop a breadcrumb in to the pan, it should start sizzling immediately. Fry your chicken on both sides, just long enough for them to go a nice brown all over, flipping once to fry the other side. When done remove from the pan and place on paper towel to soak up the extra oil. You can also deep fry them if you have a deep frier, but I like mine shallow fried just as well.
Serve on a bed of rice with plenty of sauce and mayo. Makes two servings.
Other topics:
Normally I don’t like doing anything “instant” …I love the experience of cooking, especially without electric tools, and I believe that food usually tastes better and retains better texture when done the old fashioned way, so doing real cooking in a microwave kind of goes against my culinary ethos. However! I am the only one in my family who really likes short grain white rice. I can’t justify spending a long time cooking rice for just me. That’s why I’m so happy that you included your recipe for microwaved rice! Tell me, if you use short grain, does the microwave make it sticky enough to make onigiri that hold together?
Also, I love that your recipes are for just one or two servings. It’s so much easier to multiply up than to divide down. I look forward to trying this soon.
Oh, and what’s the difference between Japanese and Western mayonnaise? In ingredients? In taste? It looks a lot more yellow in the picture than commercially bought mayonnaise, more like aoli. I’m curious.
Oh I enjoy your recipes! This one sounds good, but may I ask what is the difference between Japanese Mayonnaise and Western?
i love your recipes ♡
Oh, don’t worry, you can post as many of these as you like, it’s so mouth watering :). It’s a shame we don’t have meat substitutes in France or else I would’ve tried this recipe. I tasted vegetarian sausages in the US, they were pretty good.