[HOW to ENJOY and MAKE] TONKATSU and its brief history. Correction：Motojiro Kida, not Genjiro Kida.

Hello everyone, this is Take. Today I'm going to make tonkatsu which is said to be one of the three major Japanese style western dishes. Before that, I'd like to look back on the history of meat dishes among the Japanese. There are records that the Japanese hunted and ate wild animals However, in 552, Buddhism was introduced to Japan from India via what is now mainland China area and the Korea peninsula through Japanese envoys sent to the Zhou and Tang dynasties. The Japanese emperor Tenmu at that time conveyed the Buddhist idea of prohibiting killing animals to the Japanese in 675 and the custom of eating animals disappeared in Japan as eating purified food such as blood would incur the anger of gods though it is believed that some people still ate animals. After that, 1200 years passed and as Europe and the United States expanded into Asia, Japan which was close to the outside world then was forced to open up. One of the reasons why Japanese custom of eating meat began was because of communications with people in the west. Another reason is that the Japanese people were smaller and less physically strong than westerners. In order to communicate with westerners and build up the Japanese physics, so emperor Meiji encouraged the consumption of meat in 1872. However, western-style meat cooking with butter was too greasy for us so Japanese chef developed a method of cooking meat using traditional Japanese seasonings such as miso and soy sauce and etc. Beef dishes used soy sauce become a gyunabe pot which become the modern sukiyaki. However, meat was expensive and it took several decades for it to become widely eaten by the general public in Japan. After that, the meat to be eaten expanded from beef to chicken and then pork. The tonkatsu picked up today is based on the French dish of the time, cutlet called diminif du cod. Cutlet is a dish of ribs with bones covered with in breadcrumbs fried in oil in a frying pan and topped with demi-glace sauce. However, these flavors did not suit the Japanese people of the time so various modifications were made. The first dish that would become the basis of tonkatsu in Japan was a pork cutlet made by Kida Genjiro at Rengate in Ginza, Tokyo in 1895. It was a well-thought-out cooking method that covered the meat with three layers of butter, flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs to prevent the juices from leaking out, keep the meat tender, and create a crispy texture. Why cabbage as a garnish? Pork cutlets were made from thin pieces of pork and fried potatoes and boiled vegetables were used as a garnish. In 1904, the Russo-Japanese were broken out and there was a labor shortage at Rengate as the cooks were conscripted to overcome the situation Rengate came up with the method of chopped up raw cabbage beforehand even though boiled vegetables were then no. When you think of tonkatsu you think of cabbage as a garnish now and its origin could be found in Rengate's labor shortage. What are the roots of today's tonkatsu thick sliced pork cutlets? Furthermore, in 1929, the current tonkatsu was invented by Shinjiro Shimada, a former chef at the Imperial Household Agency and chef of Ponchiken restaurant in Okachimachi, Ueno where thick pieces of meat are deep-fried like tempura. This tonkatsu spread and become one of Japan's three major western dishes popular in Japan and with overseas guests. The popularity of tonkatsu was also largely due to the development of Japanese-style Worcestershire sauce. I'd like to introduce Japanese-style Worcestershire sauce in another YouTube about kushikatsu, etc. Now let's get started making tonkatsu. Prepare raw vegetables as a garnish. Prepare the shiso leaves. Remove the dripping from the surface of the meat with kitchen paper. Remove the tendons from the pork so that it does not curl up. Place a piece of plastic wrap on top and then hit it with a stick to remove the tendons. This time I will make another dish mille-feuille tonkatsu using small reasonably priced pieces of meat. Small pieces of meat are easy to use and so roll them up like this. If you put the shiso leaves you prepared in between, you will get a refreshing and easy to eat mille-feuille tonkatsu. Season with salt and pepper. Next, coat the meat with three layers. First, coat the meat in flour. Next, make the egg layer. Finally, coat it in breadcrumbs and it's done. Fry in a deep frying pan. Heat it to about 130 to 150 degrees for about 10 minutes. Then let it rest for a couple minutes. Finally, increase the heating it to 170 to 180 degrees over high heat. Arrange the tonkatsu on top of some raw vegetables as a garnish. It's nice to eat tonkatsu while thinking about the histories of meat eating in Japan and the background to the creation of tonkatsu. Why not try and enjoy the culmination of the efforts of people from the past. Wow! Thank you very much for watching. If you like, please subscribe this YouTube. See you next time.