Oriental Sauce Donkatsu. This is the signature dish at a local cafe near our home in Seoul! We were very impressed by the presentation of this all-too familiar dish. The pork cutlet was topped-off with a large pile of thinly-sliced onions. It looked beautiful, fresh and dare-i-say, almost healthy?! Reminded me of a salad. But that's exactly what it was. One bite and I fell in love with the overall lightness of the dish - it made sense. This weekend, I wanted to stay-home and recreate it in our own kitchen. Here's what we came up with...
Now, the key taste variable is the Oriental Sauce. We'll start off with soy sauce, for a salty-rich flavor. Balance that with sweetness from honey and sugar. And a touch of tartness from vinegar. Together, these flavors make for a refreshing, spring-y flavor. Gives a nice lift to the monotonous tones of fried foods.
The other ingredients and steps are straight-forward. However, I would like to put an extra reminder here to cut your onion into very thin strips (as thin as you can)! This dish tastes off if you're biting into thick onion slices. Reference my video to learn how to thinly slice onions without a mandoline slicer.
Bon Appetit! Wishing you a great start to the week!
Dan-yul Out 🕺
Ingredients
- Pork loin - 250 grams for 2 people
- Onion - 1 whole
- Spring onion - 1 stalk forearm stalk
- Chili pepper - ½ a pepper
- Salt - few shakes for seasoning pork loins
- Black pepper - few shakes for seasoning pork loins
Pork Crust
- Flour - ½ cup or use Korean pancake mix
- Eggs - 2
- Bread crumbs - 1 cup
Oriental Dipping Sauce
- Soy Sauce - 3 Tablespoons
- Honey - 1 Tablespoon
- Sugar - 1 Tablespoon
- Mirim - 1 Tablespoon
- Vinegar - 1 Tablespoon
- Sesame seeds - few shakes
- Spring onion - few diced pieces
- Chili pepper - few diced pieces
Instructions
- Cut one onion into very thin slices (thin enough to be translucent). Take out a mixing bowl and soak the pieces in cold water to get rid of the harshness.
- Make dipping sauce: Mix Soy Sauce (3T), Honey (1T), Sugar (1T), Mirim (1T), Vinegar (1T). Then sprinkle a few shakes of sesame seeds, diced spring onion and diced chili peppers.
- Butterfly your chunk of pork loin into thinner piece (reference video). Then cut the large pork slice in half. Now, use the back of your knife (or a tenderizer) and tenderize the meat. If you want a thicker piece, don't pound away too much.
- Season the pork piece with salt & pepper - on both sides.
Make Donkatsu
- Take out three plates. Fill the first one with flour (or Korean pancake mix). Second one with 2-3 eggs - and beat the eggs. Third plate with bread crumbs.
- Take each pork piece and coat in the following order: (1) Dip in flour, then shake off excess flour (2) Dip in egg wash - drip off excess egg-wash (3) Coat with bread crumb - shake off extra crumbs
- Repeat and set aside.
Fry donkatsu
- Fill a large frying pan with a good amount of oil.
- Put on medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot - throw in some breadcrumbs. If the breadcrumbs dance and sizzle, the oil is ready.
- Carefully place in the pork piece. Fry until golden brown on both sides. (Note: Control your oil - if it splatters too much or you see smoke, turn the heat off)
- Afterwards, let each fried pork cutlet cool-down on a wire-rack.
- Drain your onion pieces. Let them drip off excess water.
Plating donkatsu
- Place donkatsu on a plate. Put the onion pieces on top of the donkatsu. Garnish dish with a few handful of diced spring onion and diced chili peppers. Serve with Oriental Dipping Sauce (on the side)
Notes
- Feel free to replace pork loin with chicken breast
- You can use thinner cuts of pork loin - no need to buy a large chunk like we did.
- Reference video for more details
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