Chicken Katsu--Breading Technique

One of the things I appreciate about cooking is that it is about knowing techniques and methods, and not necessarily about memorizing recipes.  These methods often transcend different ethnic cuisines.  For dinner last night I made Chicken Katsu using a Standard Breading Procedure (SBP).

The SBP technique involves dredging the meat/fish/vegetable into the following three items in this specific order:
1. Flour (can be seasoned with spices and herbs)
2. Egg wash (egg + water or cream)
3. Breadcrumbs (or an alternative coating such as panko, cornmeal, chopped nuts)

If you want to keep your hands from getting all gummy, use one designated hand to handle the item while in the dry ingredient (flour or breadcrumbs) and use your other hand to handle it while in the egg wash. 

Then the coated item is pan fried or deep fried in oil. 

By changing the breadcrumb coating you can easily prepare different dishes.

For example:
Tonkatsu/Chicken Katsu/Tofu Katsu - use Panko breadcrumbs to coat pork/chicken/tofu
Chicken Parmesan/Mozzarella Sticks - use breadcrumbs seasoned with Italian seasoning to coat chicken cutlets/mozzarella
Fish sticks or fried fish - use cornmeal to coat firm white fish (tilapia, catfish, cod, snapper etc.)


Use this 3-step procedure to bread anything!