Impress with Panko

By David Hu

Panko, Japanese breadcrumbs, is a hot ingredient these days, having moved out of Japanese kitchens and into the mainstream, appearing on fine dining menus across the country – and now even at Wendy’s! The difference between panko and western breadcrumbs is that panko has ragged, craggy surfaces, making for a crispier and lighter coating.

A classic Japanese dish that is synonymous with panko is tonkatsu – thin slices of pork that is coated in panko and fried until golden. While I often order tonkatsu when I eat out, it is extremely easy to make at home. It only requires five ingredients plus bottled dipping sauce, and shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes from start to finish.

Tonkatsu is usually served on a bed of shredded cabbage with a dip of tonkatsu sauce, available in most Asian markets or in the International products aisle of your supermarket. If you can’t find it, you can make a sauce with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce as a substitute.

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Put Some Pop in Your Pork!

By Katie Barreira

The first I heard of spiking ground meat with soda was while cooking with a friend and fellow chef who uses a splash of Sprite to tenderize the filling in her pork dumplings. But the idea has been around at least as long as the soft drink. For Coke, that’d be 125 years as evidenced by their heritage meatloaf recipe – a mixture of ground beef, onions, catsup, basil and ½ cup of Coca-Cola.

While soft drinks also make excellent marinades for tough cuts, like flank steak, they are particularly effective in ground meat mixtures. So what’s the method behind the madness?

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