Miso katsu

Deep-fried pork cutlets ("katsu") are a wonderful Japanese specialty, and in my opinion the rich miso-sauce-coated version that is Nagoya's local specialty is the best. I finally managed to make it at home, and it turned out pretty damn delicious, if I do say so myself. But it wasn't all fun and games. The tasty photo you see here hides behind it a legacy of terror...

Well, it's not really as dramatic as that. However, it took some courage for my to try to deep-fry food again, after two bad experiences in Japan that made me afraid to deep-fry anything again for the past three years. Neither of them ended terribly, but they could have.

Both times I was trying to make katsu, and both involved my misunderstanding how to test the oil to see if the temperature's right for deep-frying. What you are SUPPOSED to do is to add some of the batter and see whether it rises to the top. What you are absolutely NOT supposed to do is add water. Somehow I mixed up the two, but fortunately I thought you were just supposed to add a couple of drops of water, so although it started sputtering and crackling and spitting violently for a few minutes, no permanent damage was done.

The second time I was very careful to add batter and not water. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that you have to add a new piece of batter every time you test it, so I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the piece of batter I added to rise to the top, but it never did because it became totally saturated with oil. I kept waiting until I realized that the oil was starting to emit an alarming acrid smoke, which even I realized was not a good thing.

However, with Sawa around this time to make sure I wasn't going to deep-fry myself into an early grave, it really wasn't so bad at all. I do think, though, that I'll make sure to always have Sawa around when I deep-fry from now on...

-Pat