Name: Menchi Katsu (Panko-Fried Minced Meat Cutlet)
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 300 g minced beef; 150 g minced pork; 1 onion; 1 tbsp oil; 1 tsp salt; 0.5 tsp black pepper; 0.25 tsp nutmeg; 1 egg; 3 tbsp breadcrumbs; 3 tbsp milk; 4 tbsp plain flour; 2 eggs; 150 g panko; 1 L oil for frying; 4 tbsp tonkatsu sauce; 300 g white cabbage; 0.5 lemon; 600 g cooked rice

Ingredients

4servings

Patties (makes 4)
minced beef · 20% fat or more; too lean and it goes dry300 g
minced pork · 7:3 beef to pork — the pork fat makes the juice150 g
onion · finely chopped, fried and cooled completely1
oil · for the onion1 tbsp
salt · goes in first, to bring up the stickiness1 tsp
black pepper0.5 tsp
nutmeg · takes the edge off the meat0.25 tsp
egg1
breadcrumbs · soaked in the milk3 tbsp
milk3 tbsp
Coating
plain flour4 tbsp
eggs · beaten2
panko · fresh panko gives the big shaggy crust150 g
oil for frying · at least 5cm deep in a heavy pan1 L
To serve
tonkatsu sauce4 tbsp
white cabbage · shredded very fine and held in cold water300 g
lemon0.5
cooked rice600 g

Steps

Fry the finely chopped onion in a tablespoon of oil for 5 minutes to drive off its water. Take no colour — just to translucent.
⏲ 5 min
Spread the onion on a plate and cool it completely; the fridge if you are in a hurry. Skipping this is the first cause of bursting — warm onion melts the fat while you mix, and raw onion throws water in the fryer.
⏲ 20 min
Put the beef and pork in a bowl, add the salt first, and work it 1–2 minutes until it turns sticky. The salt dissolves muscle protein into a tacky mass, and that tackiness is what holds the patty together. Warm hands smear the fat, so work hard and briefly.
⏲ 1 min 30 sec
Mix in the cooled onion, the milk-soaked breadcrumbs, one egg, the pepper and the nutmeg. It should cling to your hand without running. If it is slack, add a tablespoon more breadcrumbs.
Divide into four and shape 2cm-thick ovals, then throw each one between your hands about ten times, like a ball, to knock the air out. Trapped air pockets expand in the oil and split the crust. Smooth the surface with your palm at the end.
Coat in flour, then beaten egg, then panko. Press it on with no gaps, including the sides and the rim — a gap is where it bursts.
Chill on a plate in the fridge for 30 minutes. Only a cold, firm patty holds its shape in the oil.
⏲ 30 min
Bring the oil to 170°C — not 180. Too hot and the crust sets before the steam inside can get out, and that pressure splits it. Fry two at a time for 6–7 minutes, turning once. Do not press them with the tongs: the moment you press, the juice leaves.
⏲ 7 min
Push a skewer into the middle: clear juice means done. Pink inside means keep going. Mincing spreads what was on the surface of the meat right through the mass, which is why the safety standard here is not the one that lets a gyukatsu be served rare.
Rest on a rack for 3 minutes. Cut straight away and the juice runs onto the plate. Serve with the shredded cabbage, rice, tonkatsu sauce and lemon.
⏲ 3 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Cheese menchi katsu: hollow the patty, put low-moisture mozzarella in and close it over completely. Cheese expands as it melts, so use less of it and seal more carefully.
Cream menchi: set béchamel inside the patty. The most burst-prone version there is — give it 20 extra minutes in the freezer before frying.
Spring onion instead of onion: fried chopped spring onion makes a noticeably lighter patty, and is a common home variation in Japan.
All beef: parts of Kyushu make it with 100% beef and nothing but salt and pepper. Below about 20% fat it turns dry, so it is worth asking the butcher to mince fat in.
Oven or air fryer: spray the panko with oil and bake at 200°C for 20 minutes (air fryer 190°C, 15 minutes). It browns, but you do not get the shaggy crust that fresh panko only makes in oil.
Menchi katsu sando: in white bread with cabbage and sauce — the best thing to do with one that has gone cold.

Tips

Bursting has three causes: air inside the patty, water in the mix, and oil temperature. Throw the patty between your hands for the air, fry and cool the onion for the water, and hold 170°C for the temperature. Get all three and it will not burst.
Salt goes in first. Worked into the mince, salt dissolves muscle protein into something tacky, and that tackiness holds the patty. Add it last, after everything else, and that binding never develops and the patty crumbles (salt and seasoning).
170°C, not 180. Raising the temperature to get it over with does exactly the wrong thing here: once the crust sets, the steam inside has nowhere to go and its pressure pushes the crust off (deep frying).
Coat it with no gaps, and check the sides and rim in particular. The crust is a seal, and it bursts wherever the seal is broken.
It is not tonkatsu with different meat. Tonkatsu is a slice, so its shape is decided before you start; menchi katsu is shaped, so holding that shape is half the cooking. The coating and the sauce are the same, which hides how different the hard part is.
It cannot be served pink the way gyukatsu is. Gyukatsu is a whole cut, so searing the surface is enough; mincing mixes what was on the surface right through. Same fried exterior, opposite safety standard. Check with a skewer for clear juice.
They freeze well before frying. Bread them, wrap individually, freeze, and fry from frozen at 160°C for 9–10 minutes — the lower temperature buys time for the middle (freezing and thawing).
They also work simmered in egg like katsudon. Menchi katsu don is common in Japanese homes and suits a cutlet that has gone soft better than reheating does.
The name and the history: "menchi" is the English word minced, borrowed into Japanese. The dish comes out of Meiji-era yōshoku, and Rengatei in Ginza is often credited with the first one — though several yōshoku origin claims attach to that restaurant, which makes it hard to treat as settled.

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

More of the same kind

Main course →

More from this country

Japanese →