America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Dan makes Bridget tonkatsu, Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of Japanese rice, and Lan makes Julia Japanese curry rice with chicken.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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-What's got two thumbs and loves a fried pork cutlet?

This girl.

And so does the world.

You've got Iowa skinnies here in the States.

You've got, of course, Germany.

They've got schnitzel.

And in Japan might be my favorite -- tonkatsu.

Dan's here, and he's going to show us how to make this great dish.

-So tonkatsu is part of this Japanese concept of yoshoku, which is Japanese-influenced Western cuisine.

Tonkatsu actually gets its origin from a restaurant back in 1899, in the Ginza district of Tokyo.

And it's a riff on a French veal cutlet.

-Makes sense.

-Yes.

But so we're going to do something very, very different than veal here today.

We're going to use pork.

But we're going to start with cabbage.

So when you get tonkatsu, it's very rich.

It's fried.

It's super, super umami and fabulous.

And the cabbage is really going to cut that.

So we're going to start and do some shredded cabbage here.

So I have a whole head of green cabbage.

We're not going to use it all.

We need about 2 cups of shredded cabbage.

And just go as fine as I can.

Okay, so I'm going to transfer this over to our salad spinner here.

So cabbage is already crispy but we want it to be really crispy for this recipe.

Super refreshing.

So I have some ice in the bottom of this salad spinner.

And I'm going to add water just to cover the cabbage.

-All right.

-That looks good.

So the reason this works so well is vegetables are crispy because they contain lots of water.

And that water makes the cells really firm and nice and crispy to bite through.

It's known as turgor pressure.

And so what this is going to do is infuse it with lots of cold water.

So the cabbage which starts nice and crispy is going to get extra crispy.

We're going to let this sit for about 10 minutes.

-All right.

-That's 10 minutes.

So now, because the ice was left in the bottom and not in here, it's very easy to separate it.

-Smart.

-Dump that.

And we'll give it a nice spin to get that water off.

So you can see how much water we got off.

That's significant.

All right, we're gonna pop this in the fridge, and you can do this about three hours in advance, and then we can move on to the pork.

-Great.

-Bridget, it is time for cutlet class.

-Thank goodness.

-So no matter where the cutlet comes from, for the most part, you're using what we call a standard breading procedure.

It is just the standard way to go, and there's good reason for it.

So we're going to set that up here.

I have 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour.

This is our first sort of dust coat.

It's going to absorb moisture from the meat, and it's going to make a nice surface for the egg to adhere to.

So we've got two eggs here, which I'm going to beat until we have a nice even color.

-So no streaks.

-So no streaks.

And eggs really are the glue in the standard breading procedure.

And then finally we have our breadcrumbs.

So we are using panko, which is Japanese breadcrumbs.

Look through the little window on the bag and look for the biggest flakes you can find.

If you can find something like this, it's just going to be a crunchier, really nice cutlet.

So I have 2 1/2 cups in this 13 by 9.

So it's time for the pork.

I have four 6-ounce center-cut pork chops.

They're about 3/4-inch thick.

So we're going to do a tiny bit of prep.

There's a really cool technique here that Japanese chefs use that we were just blown away by.

So it's taking a paring knife like this.

And you go in at about a 45-degree angle, make a 1/4-inch slit, you're pushing down to the cutting board, and you just repeat that around the entire connective tissue.

And what it does is it prevents buckling.

Beautiful.

All right.

So we're going to do about a teaspoon of kosher salt which I'll use across all four of them.

-Okay.

-Our next step is to get into the flour here.

So our sort of dust coat.

I like to cover both sides really nicely.

Then just give it a little pat and get the excess off.

We're going to do this step for all of them first.

I have them back over here.

And now we can go into our egg and our panko.

So what I do is designate one hand as my kind of wet egg hand and the other for the panko.

And that really does help.

By the time you're done, the cutlets are breaded, but you're not.

We're going to go into the egg here.

And same thing, I want to get really good coverage and then let it drip off.

This is going to give us a really thin coating.

We just want it to act as glue.

We're not trying to, you know, have a big eggy layer.

And then I'm going to go right into the panko.

Now, egg hand stays over here.

And what this nice layering over here does, it gives me a lot of room to operate.

But I can take this panko over here, put it on top, and really press it in.

Really pack it on.

Give it a flip.

Do the same on this side.

So these look fabulous.

I'm going to get cleaned up.

We're going to get ready to cook them off.

So tonkatsu is often deep-fried in restaurants.

We wanted to use a lot less oil.

And shallow frying works just as well.

So I've got 3/4 cup of oil here, just a neutral vegetable oil, in my 12-inch cast iron, and I have it about 340 degrees, which is perfect.

[ Sizzling ] So we want just a gentle sound when that goes in.

-Mm.

Perfect music.

-Oh.

So good.

So we're going to cook this for about four minutes a side.

And we're not going to flip frequently, but we are often going to check underneath here and really allow steam to escape, water to escape so we'll get even browning along the bottom.

So we'll take about four minutes here and then we'll flip.

-All right.

-So it's been about four minutes.

I've been moving them around to keep them browning beautifully on the bottom.

-Oh, that's perfection.

-Looks all right?

-Yeah.

-Beautiful.

Okay, so we'll repeat on this side another four minutes.

And once again I'll be lifting and releasing that steam.

-Okay.

-While they're finishing on this side I want to explain over here.

We're going to rest them and actually lean them up against this loaf pan.

And it's a really, really cool technique because if you think about it, any time you rest food, even if it's on a wire rack, the moisture coming out of the food sogs out whatever is at the bottom.

Gravity pulls it down there.

And so by standing them up here, the liquid is going to drive down really just to one of the edges.

So we might sog that out a little bit.

But you'll keep the big flat sides really, really crispy.

-All right.

-Let's take a look.

Oh, that is beautiful.

-Fantastic.

-All right, so we're gonna get them out.

I'm gonna prop them, as I mentioned, right up against that pan.

I love that innovation there.

So great.

We're gonna let them rest for just five minutes, and then we'll get our cabbage out, and it's time to dig in.

-Perfect.

-These have rested for five minutes and I'm going to cut them up for us.

-Mmm.

-Ooh, that sounds good.

Looking for 1/2-inch-thick slices.

Oh, so juicy.

I can already tell.

-Good grief.

-All right, so some of our super crispy refreshed thinly sliced cabbage.

And we've got some steamed short-grain rice, a little wasabi.

And then we have our Bull-Dog Sauce here.

So this is a name brand of a really great condiment that started in the early 1900s.

It's got Worcestershire sauce, a little bit of ketchupy vibes to it, super savory.

You can obviously buy it at the store.

This is our homemade version that you can get on our site.

-Okay.

Look at that.

Beautiful pork juiciness.

Gorgeous.

That is impossibly crispy.

-It's really beautiful.

We were able to pack on that nice flaky panko, and I feel like that makes all of the difference.

And this is really nice pork.

It's got lots of richness.

You saw that marbling in there.

Gotta try it with the Bull-Dog Sauce.

-Yeah.

I'm going to do it too.

Mmm.

A little spice in there.

-Mm-hmm.

-Like warm spices.

Gorgeous.

-Mm-hmm.

-I'm gonna also try some lemon on it.

-All right, and I want to be just like Dan, so I'm going to try some lemon on it.

-Sometimes simple is the best.

And that acidity is so key whether it's in the Bull-Dog Sauce or the lemon.

-Let's get some of this cabbage.

It's like the texture of a pickle without the pickle.

-That's right.

Yeah.

-This was spectacular.

Definitely going to make it at home.

So thanks.

-You're welcome.

-Well, if you want to make this beautiful dish at home, it starts by making 1/4-inch slits around the fat cap of thin cut, boneless loin chops.

Lift the breaded chops while frying to release trapped steam and moisture, and then lean the chops against an overturned loaf pan to maximize that crispy surface.

So from "America's Test Kitchen," the pinnacle of fried pork chops, tonkatsu.

Yeah, I'm loving this.

-So good.

-Rice is essential in many cuisines around the world, and depending on its variety, the flavor, texture, and appearance can vary dramatically.

Today, Jack is here to tell us more about Japanese rice.

-Yeah, this is really interesting.

So sometimes it's labeled sushi rice.

And of course it's used in sushi, but it's used as the table rice with everything you eat.

And so some of these rices are actually now grown in Japan and imported to the US.

But there's a long tradition of these short- and medium-grain rices being grown in California, and that's where the rest of them are from.

So we're tasting three different varieties.

We're tasting white rice, brown rice, and then we're tasting a sweet rice.

-Mmm.

-Mochigome.

It's just really got a different flavor than the other rices.

What are you getting there with this one?

-I'm wondering, I don't know a lot about sweet rice, but this has a sweet flavor and a really chewy, gummy but in a lovely way texture, which is what I would assume sweet rice would taste like.

-Yeah, so some of the sweet rices are a little bit more floral.

This is obviously brown rice.

One of the interesting things we learned is in Japan, they're often milling different amounts of the bran off.

So it's not sort of a binary of white or brown, which is really creating a wide range.

We tasted 19 different things.

There were so many, we couldn't get them all on the table.

-That's a lot of rice.

I'm not a big fan of brown rice, even though I like it for its health benefits, but the flavor of this is more toasty, grassy.

But it doesn't have that overwhelmingly germy flavor, that slightly sour flavor.

It doesn't have that.

-Yeah, I really feel like these are more malty and caramely.

In general, just delicious.

-Mm-hmm.

-So we found the Japanese imported rices are delicious.

They're going to be about twice the price of the American grown.

-Okay.

-The American grown has a long tradition.

So it started back actually in the 1940s with Calrose, which is probably the sort of main variety.

But from then there's been a lot of breeding, different varieties that have been introduced over the ensuing decades.

And so you get a lot of wonderful choices from California.

-This is delicious.

It's very plain.

I could picture this going with any sort of cuisine, whether it was South American, Indian, Chinese.

-You do want to rinse the rices so that they're not too much starch on them, but they're supposed to be a little starchy so that they stick together so you can pick them up with chopsticks, you know?

-This is buttery.

I really like this.

-So do you have a favorite here on the table?

-No, I like them all.

-You're taking all of this home?

-Well, this is new to me.

This sweet rice.

-Yeah.

So that is the mochigome.

So that is actually a California brand, but it's got a lovely texture to it.

It's a little stickier than the rest, so that it will stick together to be able to wrap with seaweed and other things.

-Yeah, and this one -- So that's my new favorite.

But this is my second favorite, close.

Because again, it's new to me and I can imagine it going really nicely with grilled vegetables with a vinaigrette just bringing out those flavors.

-This brown rice is from California and it's just got a lovely, subtle, slightly woodsy, not overly aggressive flavor.

-This one?

-This is another California rice.

It's from a place called Koda Farms, which is maybe the best known of all the growers.

This is Kokuho Rose, and it just has a lovely, gentle flavor.

It's a little bit sweet, but it's not as sweet as the sweet rice.

-Right.

-And the last one is the Japanese rice that I wanted you -- So this is twice the price of everything on the table.

-You can taste it.

-You really like this rice?

-I do.

It tastes -- It just has a deeper flavor.

Buttery comes to mind.

Just richer.

-So the company that makes this rice is Hokkaido Yumepirika.

And it's just a delicious rice.

Well, I'm glad that you had fun tasting these rices.

And it's really encouraged people to seek these out.

They're in your supermarket.

They're certainly at any Asian grocery stores.

And there's a wonderful world of Japanese rices out there.

-Today you'll find curry dishes all over Japan, but that hasn't always been the case.

If you go back just 200 years or so, you'll see that the spices used in curry, like turmeric and cinnamon, were used primarily for medicinal purposes.

It wasn't until the mid to late 1800s, when Japan opened its borders, that curry became very popular.

And now it's a part of the national cuisine.

And today Lan is going to show us how to make a traditional Japanese curry with chicken.

-Julia, this dish is so tasty and it's so easy.

And the reason it's easy is most people will use something like this.

It's a commercial curry rubric, and you make stew of some sort with some meat and vegetables.

Whatever you've got on hand.

Drop one of these in.

It thickens the sauce, flavors it beautifully, and it makes dinner really simple.

-It's like an instant sauce.

-Yeah.

Pretty much.

Except we're not going to use this.

We're going to make our own, because that gives us the chance to customize the flavors.

And there are no additives.

We know everything that's going in.

-A-ha.

-Yeah.

So let's start with the curry.

Here we go.

1 1/2 teaspoons of coriander.

And we're just going to put everything right into a bowl.

1 1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger.

And you'll have most of these spices.

There are a couple you might have to go and purchase.

Totally worth it.

-That's the fun part.

-1 1/2 teaspoons of turmeric.

And then 1/2 teaspoon of ground fenugreek.

1/2 teaspoon of ground fennel.

And 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Now, these spices I have in here, they're in pretty much every curry formulation you'll see.

They kind of form the base of the curry and give it its Japanese identity almost.

The rest of the ingredients are kind of my personalizations of this, and they can be broken down into kind of two broad categories.

There's kind of the deep, heavy, earthy spices and the lighter top notes.

You're building a symphony in a bowl.

-Yeah.

-So first up I've got 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of brown mustard.

-Mmm.

-Last up, the top notes.

This is 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper for a little heat.

Finally, just to sweeten everything, 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar.

And so we'll just whisk this together.

Make sure there are no lumps.

This is our curry spice mix.

Let's get on to the second half of that brick.

It's the roux.

I've got 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a 10-inch skillet.

And that butter just melts over low heat.

Really simple.

I'll add 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour.

I just want to sprinkle it right over the top.

It's going to be a nice thick sauce.

We're going to just whisk this constantly.

It doesn't have to be fast.

You just want to keep it moving so that nothing chars.

I'm going to cook this until it's pale golden brown over medium heat.

And that's going to take 3 to 4 minutes.

So, Julia, this is kind of what we're looking for.

It looks almost like tahini.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

So I'm going to shut the heat off so that it doesn't continue to cook too much.

I want to make sure I don't overcook the roux because then it won't have the thickening power I'm after.

-You can just smell the flour's starting to toast.

-Yeah, well, smell this.

The spices go right in and we'll give it a whisk.

So one last ingredient that goes in here.

I've got a tablespoon of white miso.

This is just going to bring a little extra umami and some salt to this.

So I'm going to whisk in that miso.

Make sure that it's well combined.

And it'll be lumpy.

That's perfectly normal.

This is ready to go.

I'm just going to grab a loaf pan.

The size doesn't matter.

What I want is to make sure that I can divide it in half evenly.

-Very cool.

You're making your own brick.

-I am making my own curry brick.

So we'll just get all of this goodness right in the pan.

So I'm going to pop this in the fridge so that it can fully set up and then we'll move on.

-Okay.

-It's been 30 minutes.

You can see this is fully set.

I'm just going to run a paring knife around the edges.

And this should just pop right out.

So this is enough to make two batches of curry.

I'm just going to divide this block in half and we'll use this one for us.

This other one I'm just going to wrap and pop in the fridge for the next batch I make.

All right, Julia, we're going to start making the actual curry rice now.

And this curry is so quick to make we actually need to make the rice first.

-Okay.

-So I'm going to use a rice cooker here.

And I've got 1 1/3 cups of Japanese short-grain rice.

I've washed it to get rid of all the starches on the outside so that it cooks up nice and fluffy.

It's drained and it'll just go right into this cooker.

And then to cook this rice, I'm going to need 1 2/3 cups of water.

So this will go on and I'll hit start.

Now we can start our curry.

I've got 1 pound of boneless skinless chicken thighs here.

I've cut them up into 1-inch pieces.

And I'm just going to season with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.

It's going to go right in.

Then I'll give it a quick stir to make sure it's well distributed.

Cool.

That's it.

And then we can start cooking.

This is a medium saucepan and I've got a tablespoon of vegetable oil will go right in.

We'll heat this oil over medium heat until it starts to shimmer.

I've got one chopped onion in here and 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt.

And we'll just let this go until the onions brown.

It's going to take about eight minutes.

We want to stir frequently as this cooks.

All right Julia, it's been eight minutes.

You can see these are browned.

And there's some nice fond developing on the bottom of that pot in the corners.

Time to get the rest of the aromatics in.

I've got 2 1/2 teaspoons of grated ginger and one clove of minced garlic.

And this just goes in and we just let it go until it's fragrant.

Takes 30 seconds.

Okay.

So that's looking great.

Now we can add our chicken.

And this is just going to go right in I'm going to cook it until it's no longer pink.

Here we go.

No longer pink.

-Mm-hmm.

So I've got two carrots here.

They've been cut into 1/2-inch pieces.

Next up I've got a pound of Yukon gold potatoes, peeled, cut into 3/4-inch pieces.

So quick stir to just mix everything in and then we get our liquid.

It is 2 2/3 cups of chicken broth.

Goes right in.

And then I'm just going to crank the heat so you can see it's starting to come up to a simmer.

That's all I'm looking for.

I'm going to turn it down because I want this to cook gently.

I don't want those potatoes to just fall apart because they're boiling too hard.

And then we'll let this go for about 20 minutes.

That's how long it's going to take to cook.

The potatoes are tender and we're ready to move on.

I'm going to add our curry brick finally.

It all just goes right in.

-Plop.

Just plop it right in.

-Just let it hang out there.

Now it's going to melt slowly as it sits.

I am going to push it down so it's submerged.

And then a couple other sauces just for seasoning, salt and umami mostly.

I've got 2 teaspoons of soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce.

Worcestershire is another one of those British influences you see in a lot of Japanese cuisine.

It's been about a minute.

That brick is melting down, and I just want to give this a stir.

As it dissolves, it's going to cook and flavor and thicken this liquid.

Takes just three minutes of gentle simmering.

You can see that body just appearing as this cooks.

Look at how thick that looks.

-Yeah.

Yeah, thanks to the roux.

-Exactly.

-So let's talk a little bit about the roux because different recipes call for different colors of roux, and that makes a big difference.

When cooking the roux over heat, it transforms in a couple of ways.

Proteins and starch in the butter and flour undergo Maillard reactions, which develop nutty, savory flavors.

The reactions also cause the flour to deepen in color.

When the pale golden roux is cooked with the curry at this stage, the long strands of starch from the roux tangle and collide with each other, slowing the flow of the curry and giving it a thick and creamy texture.

If we'd cooked the roux for longer, the color would have gotten darker and the flavor would have deepened, but the prolonged exposure to heat would have caused the long starch chains in the flour to break into shorter chains.

When a dark brown roux like this is cooked with the curry, the short starch chains flow past each other without tangling, making the curry less viscous.

That's why for a thick and flavorful kare raisu, we cook the roux to a light golden brown.

-Julia, check this out.

-That's gorgeous.

It is so smooth.

Perfectly thickened.

-And it happened in just minutes, like right before our eyes.

-I love this method.

-Yeah.

So I'm going to give this a quick taste and then adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

That's pretty close on the salt.

Just a little bit here.

I like a lot of pepper.

How do you feel?

-Go for it.

Yeah.

-Okay.

So to serve this, we'll go back to our rice.

-All right.

-And there's a traditional way this is served.

You would want to see the rice over half of the bowl and the curry on the other half rather than ladling it on top.

And then we'll scoot back over here and ladle curry over the other half.

-Mmm.

-It's such an inviting smell.

-It really is.

That's gorgeous.

-Right?

So fun.

Couple last things.

A little scallion for just some freshness.

The traditional pickle for kare raisu is called fukujin-zuke.

And you can buy it commercially.

It comes bright red.

-You are not kidding.

It is so red you can't tell what's what.

-Yeah, so what you're going to find in there usually is daikon, cucumber, eggplant, and lotus root.

-Oh, interesting.

-Yeah, it's a fun mix of textures and flavors.

You could also make your own.

It won't be the same color, but, you know, it also won't be the same color.

-Yeah.

And you can find that recipe on our website.

-Yeah.

So what do you want to go with?

-Oh, I'm going with homemade.

-Me too.

Up to you how much you feel like using and which pieces.

-I'm going right for the sauce.

-I'm gonna try some chicken.

-Mmm.

That is so much better than the store-bought curry bricks.

There's such depth of flavor, and the texture of the sauce is perfection.

I'm going to grab a little pickle.

-Try that pickle.

-Mm-hmm.

That's delicious.

With the pickles, it just adds that little bit of acidity as a balance for the rich curry.

-The curry making requires a handful of ingredients, but once you've got them, this could be dinner once a week and it's no time.

-This is incredible.

Thank you, Lan.

-Oh, thank you.

-If you want to make this traditional Japanese curry, start by making a flavorful curry roux brick, simmer chicken thighs and vegetables in broth, then stir in the curry roux at the end to turn the broth into a sauce.

From "America's Test Kitchen," Lan's recipe for a fast and flavorful kare raisu.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with select episodes and our product reviews at our website, AmericasTestKitchen.com/TV.

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