Katsu-sando

A cutlet between buttered crustless slices, pressed and rested before the crusts come off.

Not vegetarian — contains tonkatsu, which is a breaded pork cutlet.

Ingredients

• 4 tonkatsu, freshly fried
• 8 thick slices white milk bread
• 60 g butter, soft
• 1 tablespoon karashi mustard
• 6 tablespoons tonkatsu sauce
• 100 g white cabbage, very finely shredded

Method

1. BUTTER BOTH INNER FACES RIGHT TO THE EDGE, and this is structural rather than a matter of taste. The butter is a waterproof layer between the sauce and the crumb; without it the bread is soaked through within ten minutes and the sandwich cannot be picked up.
2. A thin even layer, corner to corner. A gap is where it leaks.
3. THICK SOFT WHITE BREAD, the milk-bread sort. Sourdough or anything with a chewy crumb fights the cutlet, and the whole point is that the bread gives way instantly.
4. Fry the tonkatsu as on its own page and rest it 5 minutes on a rack. Straight from the oil it steams the bread.
5. Karashi mixed into the butter on one slice only -- it is fierce.
6. Sauce on the cutlet, not on the bread. On the bread it goes straight through the butter you just laid.
7. Cabbage is optional and belongs UNDER the cutlet if it is used, where it cannot slide.
8. PRESS AND REST, 5 minutes, under a light board or a plate. That compacts it enough to cut cleanly and lets the sauce settle into the cutlet.
9. CRUSTS OFF AFTER PRESSING, NOT BEFORE. Trimmed first, the sandwich spreads and loses its shape under the weight.
10. Cut into three fingers with a long sharp knife, wiped between cuts, and serve cut side up so the layers show.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes