Kendra Makes Crispy Pork With Kimchi Slaw

[pork cutlet crackling]

[Kendra laughing]

It's very crispy, this pork.

[upbeat jazz music]

Today, we are making a crispy pork cutlet with kimchi slaw,

and on top is a gochujang mayo.

It's pretty easy and quick.

Making a cutlet is the most involved part of it.

But on the other side, you have this no-cook side dish,

so it kind of evens it out

to make it actually feel like pretty weeknight-friendly.

[meat tenderizer pounding]

The first thing that you do

whenever you make a cutlet of any protein

is pound it to be as thin as possible.

The hallmark of a cutlet is that

it's like golden brown and crispy and very thin.

It needs to be quite thin so that it cooks quickly

and you don't have to worry about the insides being under

once the outsides get to your perfect golden brown doneness.

We're using boneless pork chops,

but you could use chicken thighs or breasts.

The reason why you stick your meat

between these plastic layers

is that it kind of like provides you some separation

between the tool that you're using to pound the meat

and the meat itself.

[meat tenderizer pounding]

Tell everyone around you

that you're sorry you're making a racket

and then just go to town on it.

So we're at about 1/4-inch thickness.

Nice, big, flat, and craggy on the edges.

And you can also do this like earlier in the day,

stick them in the fridge,

and then when it's time for dinner,

get everything else ready to go.

I've decided that my pounding the cutlet song

is Work by Rihanna.

[groovy music]

So now we are going to start our breading procedure.

And I think the easiest way to do that with, like, a cutlet

is to just use pie plates or cake pans

'cause they're like nice and shallow,

but also like very wide.

And the standard procedure for breading

is just flour then eggs.

And then we're gonna do panko.

Panko is the ultimate breadcrumb.

It's Japanese breadcrumb.

It's got this really gorgeous light and crispy texture.

It coats the meat really nicely

and it fries really readily

because you've got all these gorgeous little crags

and surface area for it to crisp up.

And then the most important thing

is you have to season every part of this process.

We're gonna season the pork

and then we're gonna season

each of the pieces of the breading.

Just do a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper.

You've heard it before.

I'm gonna say it again.

Dry hand, wet hand.

This is how you bread.

Dry hand, wet hand.

The flour is just creating this, like, dry base.

It means that the coating

is going to stick to the protein really well.

And then that goes into panko.

Pat pretty thoroughly.

Gorg. Okay, shaking off that excess.

This is in the September print issue of Bon Appetit

and there's two dishes that use panko as the breading,

but one uses Cheez-Its.

So, really, like anything crispy crunchy

will make a great cutlet coating.

All right, so now we are all coated

and we are gonna head to the stove to get these frying.

So I've got a big cast iron skillet here.

You can use any sort of like heavy, large skillet.

You could use a Dutch oven.

We're not deep-frying, we're shallow-frying,

which means about 1/4 inch of oil in the pan

is all you need.

Something you can do to see if your oil is ready

is pick off a little piece of your panko and drop it in.

And if it doesn't immediately start to sizzle,

your oil's not hot enough.

All right, we good.

Yeah, look at that sizzle.

And this happens pretty fast,

like about two-ish minutes per side.

Something that I like to do, too,

is just press down across the cutlet

to make sure everybody gets contact, the pan.

The nice thing about it being so thin

is that you really only have to look at the visual cues.

When the outside is crispy and golden brown,

the inside will be done.

You can see it gets a little bit more crispy on the outside,

so that's just another reason why you gotta press.

Usually, the second side

does a little better than the first.

It's kinda like first pancake syndrome.

Immediately season your cutlet.

And the other thing is, you wanna be

sort of playing with your heat

because the longer that your oil is sitting over the heat,

the hotter it's gonna get.

It's just gonna get hotter and hotter and hotter.

Yum. Look at that.

Moving your cutlets or anything that you fry

onto a sheet pan with a wire rack inside of it

is the best way to ensure that it stays really crispy.

Because they have that airflow coming from all directions,

they can sit there for a minute.

We don't have to get working on them immediately.

We're gonna go back and make our slaw.

So now we're gonna prepare our slaw,

which is made up of purple cabbage,

Napa cabbage, kimchi, and scallion.

So I'm just gonna go at these

like kind of from an angle here

and thinly slice.

The dark green parts are gonna be

for our garnish at the end.

So for cabbage, you can thinly slice this with your knife.

Easy peasy.

You could use a mandolin, which is what I'm gonna do,

so you get those, like, really fine shreds.

So we're just gonna cut out our little core here.

You wanna make sure you have a flat edge

'cause anything that isn't flat

is just not gonna get caught on the blade.

See how like delightfully light and crispy this is?

Last part is our kimchi.

So we're just going to finely chop our kimchi.

You want the kimchi to essentially be a dressing

and kind of like melt away into that mixture.

The liquid that your kimchi was fermenting in

is so deeply flavorful

and you should not throw this away.

It's great in salad dressings, it's great in marinades.

We've got a little bit of rice vinegar, as well,

to amp up that brightness.

And then just a little pinch of sugar.

That is gonna really balance the, like, salty funkiness.

Yum, so you really got that,

the scallion pieces in there, breaking it up,

and you're just dressing your cabbage with all that kimchi.

Yum.

So you can also do this first, set it aside.

It will hold up great for a couple of hours.

So now we're gonna make our condiment,

which is gochujang mayo.

Gochujang is the same ingredient that is in kimchi as well.

That's this Korean pepper paste.

This is much more sweet heat

and it turns it this gorgeous color.

So now we're all ready and we're gonna plate this up.

First thing is, I'm gonna cut my cutlet.

I like these long strips.

Our slaw, juicy and delicious.

And then what you could do

is just dollop your mayo right on top

and have it as a dipper,

and, like, that's totally fine and delightful,

but I am going to be a little bit extra.

Upturn a Ziploc bag in a cup

and then you're just gonna nip off the edge here.

And then we're gonna do a nice

little mayo drizzle on our pork.

Yum.

And then finish with green scallions.

Ta-da!

This is the crispy pork cutlet

with our kimchi slaw and our gochujang mayo.

Rach, you wanna come eat with me?

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah!

That's so pretty.

Ready? Yes.

[Kendra] Oh my God.

The sauce matches your nails.

Oh my God. And my jumpsuit.

[Kendra] We didn't even

coordinate this. No, we didn't.

[Kendra humming]

I love a cutlet.

That's so crispy

and I really love, like, how savory the gochujang mayo is.

And then you get such a great amount of crunch

from the cabbage.

That's a perfect bite. So good.

That's high praise, coming from you.

There's nothing like a super thin,

super crispy piece of protein,

but to make it really sing,

you have to bump it up with a bunch of really bold flavors,

and that's where the kimchi and the gochujang is coming in

to just make that cutlet feel like a party in your mouth.

[groovy synth music]