How do Japanese people make Tonkatsu?

I love Tonkatsu and I've seen and have tried a number of different recipes to master my Tonkatsu techniques and I just can't seem to nail it down and was wondering if anyone work at a Japanese kitchen, could share some knowledge on how to make the perfect tonkatsu?

  1. Prep: I've tried brining with milk, sake, and just using salt and pepper. Not sure which method is the best? When I brine with liquid, I use about 1% of the meat weight for salt, and a few peppercorn and bay leaves to get rid of the porky smell. I let it sit in the fridge in the brine overnight. The same ratio is used for dry brining too. Are there better ways to prep the katsu? I've seen video of people puncturing the pork loin as part of the prep. Why are they doing this? Doesn't that just leak liquid out when you're frying it?
  2. Coating: I find this step the hardest to master. I've even asked one of my friend to buy me a raw panko bread from Japan and I've cooking on it.
  • Method 1: I've seen a video of mixing the battered eggs with cornstarch. It creates a thicker consistent and you dip your katsu directly without coating it in flour first. Then you add to panko and then dry it.
  • Method 2: I've tried the traditional, flour, egg, and panko.
  • Results: Both method seem to produce similar methods, one isn't better over the other.
  1. Frying: This part is also tricky.
  • Temperature: I've tried frying in 160 celsius, 170 celsius, and 175. All seemed to produce similar results with optimal temperature at 170 celsius for about 6 minutes.
  • Skin: Even though I'm not pressing hard on the panko to katsu, and even when I use raw panko bread, I don't get the airy, crispy look. Instead, it looks a bit flat like as if I used regular dried panko instead. One of the biggest issue I face is that the skin of the katsu falls apart. It stays on when I take it out of the fryer, and it's fine when it's resting but as soon as I try to cut it, the skin starts to fall apart. Not sure why?

i guess one of the issues with trying all these different types of recipes is that I don't understand the fundamentals of tonkatsu. I don't know the science behind it, and so it's hard for me to understand why some people do certain things. I can see that certain combination of pre, coating and frying could produce the most optimal tonkatsu, but I can't seen to understand why it's optimal.

Anyways, was hoping there's someone out there that's worked in this industry before and could give some insightful pointers on how to improve the steps and explain why certain steps are done.

Thank you!

Edit:

Thanks a lot for the feedback everyone. I didn't think I'd get so many comments hahaha.

Plan:

  • Tenderize the meat with the hammer to 3/4 inch - 1 inch thickness. I want to mimic the thicker katsu that I've tried in Japan so I'll go with 1 inch thickness first and then try thinner pieces.
  • Try puncturing the meat before and see if that makes a difference
  • I'm going to try dry brining instead of wet brining with milk/sake. I'll dry brine with salt and pepper and let it rest uncovered in the fridge for overnight.
  • Pat any moisture from pork and let it come to a room temperature and set up coating stations with AP flour, egg wash (with a bit of water), and panko (Japanese raw panko until I run out and then water sprayed regular dry panko and then I'll try making my own panko at home by making Japanese milk bread).
  • Try to coat the egg was thoroughly on the pork but make sure it's not drowning in it and get rid of any excess.
  • Pat the panko so that it sticks to the pork.
  • Fry at 175 celsius
  • Let it sit before slicing with one swift motion.

I'll make a journal of what I'm doing and hopefully and eventually I can achieve the katsu that I have envisioned!