You might have seen my recipe for Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) that I posted earlier this year - if you tried it yourself, I hope you liked it. Here's another katsu recipe. This time I used minced pork. People from the Kansai region of Japan call this dish Minchi katsu, but in the Kanto region (where i'm from), it's Menchi katsu. Like Tonkatsu, Menchi katsu is another example of a Western style dish assimilated into Japanese food culture at the turn of the 20th century. (Yes, you guessed correctly, it means "minced cutlet".) You could say menchi is more Japanese than tonkatsu because it uses minced meat combined with other ingredients - this is very much the Japanese way of using meat - mincing or chopping into small pieces. Tonkatsu is an outlier in Japanese cooking because it uses a cut of meat rather than smaller pieces. "Traditional" Menchi is made using minced beef but nowadays, you can find it made with a mixture of beef and pork or (like my recipe here) just minced pork. I'm not sure that there are any hard and fast rules about the size a Menchi but I think to describe the size as about the same as a tennis ball or a little smaller which I think hits the mark. You could make them smaller than that but any larger and you might find it difficult to cook the contents before the breadcrumbs get overcooked and burn. I serve my Menchi katsu on a bed of green salad with a bowl of rice on the side. Like Tonkatsu, the Japanese love to give their Menchi katsu a good drizzle of ketchup or brown sauce (guilty secret time - I use both!)
You can find the written recipe just below and the Youtube tutorial link by clicking Menchi katsu or scroll to the bottom of the page.
Happy frying! Kurumi XXXX.
Menchi Katsu
ingredients:
(makes 2 portions)
220g minced pork
40g finely minced onion
1.5tbsp green peas
1/8tsp salt
1/8th tsp pepper
40g plain flour
1 egg, beaten
40g Japanese breadcrumbs
veg oil for deep frying
some kitchen paper
how to:
put the minced pork, onion, peas, salt & pepper in a bowl and mix well
divide the mixture into 2 halves and form two round patties
coat each patty with flour, then next coat in the beaten egg and finally the breadcrumbs
fill a saucepan with 3cm of veg and heat to 180 C
deep fry each patty for 5-6 mins, turning over 2/3 times
taking care to keep the oil at around 180 C
drain on kitchen paper
i usually eat my menchi with a green salad and rice but you could combine it with another veg dish and/or miso soup as well!