Chicken Katsu

Panko is everywhere these days, and why shouldn't it be? It makes things much lighter and crunchier than traditional bread crumbs - it's great!

Before the whole panko craze, I always kept it in my pantry for making katsu and it's still one my favorite uses for it. Just fry up a few of these babies and serve it with some rice and steamed or sauteed veggies and you've got a great meal. You can use pork instead of chicken for tonkatsu too!

Ingredients:
- Chicken
- Flour
- Salt
- Egg
- Panko
- Oil

Take boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs and either cut or pound them to an even thickness.

Mix the flour with a bit of salt in a plate. Mix an egg with a bit of water in another plate. Spread panko crumbs out in a third plate. Here's what my breading setup looked like.
Heat up enough oil to cover at least half the thickness of the chicken to about 300 degrees.

Take each piece of chicken and lightly coat it in the flour mixture and pat off the excess flour. Then drag it through the egg mixture and let the excess drip off. Lastly, pat it in the panko crumbs. I found that holding the corner of the chicken with your thumb and forefinger and dipping it in each mixture without letting go was the best way to go. Yes, one corner won't have breading, but honestly, after it's been fried up, you can't even tell which corner you were holding on to.

Next, carefully put it into the hot oil and fry it for a few minutes on each side until golden brown and cooked through.

Dip it in some katsu sauce and enjoy. You can probably make the sauce yourself with some ketchup, worcestire sauce, garlic powder and maybe some vinegar? Add some honey and/or brown sugar if you like the sweet hawaiian style sauce better. I've never tried making the sauce, but if I were to, I'd start with that and then make adjustments as needed. Or, you can just buy this -
I hope you like it!