Changing the Set Meal

In Japan, most restaurants offer one or more teishoku (定食) or "set meals". These are standard combo meals that feature a main dish, accompanied by rice, soup and a few side dishes. One such combo is the tonkatsu (豚カツ) teishoku: a deep-fried, breaded pork cutlet served with a thick, Worcestershire-like sauce along with rice, and finely shredded cabbage.

Traditionally, the pork is simply dredged in flour, dipped in egg, then breaded with panko -- a flaky, crisp bread crumb product from Japan -- before being deep-fried until golden.

It occurred to me recently that I could add seasonings to the panko to make it more interesting, like Italians do with their breaded and fried foods. So I mixed some cayenne pepper, salt and finely grated orange rind with the panko.

One major drawback of fried food made with bread crumbs is that leftovers become soggy in the fridge. And let's face it, our love affair with deep-frying is conditional on the crunchiness of the golden exterior. Once soggy, they don't regain their crispness in the microwave, which is sadly the only equipment for warming up work day lunches at most places of business. The solution to this -- which I discovered from a recipe by Canadian chef Michael Smith -- is to use finely ground cornmeal instead of bread crumbs. It stays crunchy in spite of condensation and reheats very well. So I added a handful of cornmeal to the dry mixture for extra bite.

The pork I used came from the Korean supermarket. One detail that helped this dish enormously was the fact that the cutlets were deeply scored on both sides, creating deep grooves in which more of the breading could adhere to the meat.

Lacking a deep-fryer and not being a fan of deep-frying, I've always shallow-fried my tonkatsu and found that it works just as well. I used clarified butter this time because (a) I had clarified a whole block of butter a few days ago, (b) it has a higher smoking point than most cooking oils, which is important when fast frying at a high temperature is required.

The tonkatsu was cooked through yet very moist and tender. The orange rind was a nice foil for the tonkatsu sauce and the cayenne gave the dish an extra little kick. It goes to show that you don't have to be confined to the set menu . Playing around with this old standard was tasty and fun.