Panko chicken

Does your panko chicken call for panko? We have the low-down on Japanese-style bread crumbs, including when you can substitute classic bread crumbs. My first experience with tonkatsu was eye-opening. I was in Tokyo with my family on a mission to eat as much ramen as humanly possible, but the hotel concierge told us we shouldn’t leave without a visit to Tonkatsu Maisen.

So we took the train to Shibuya and ordered away. It reminded me of German schnitzel, but the breading was extremely crunchy—crunchier than any fried cutlet I’d ever had. When we got back to the hotel, I asked the concierge what made the pork so crispy. Panko is a unique style of bread crumb used in Japanese baked and fried dishes. It starts with baking bread in a specially designed oven using electric current instead of heat. That produces a crustless white bread that’s soft and dense. The bread is then dried and ground into coarse flakes that are larger than regular bread crumbs.

CATEGORIES snack recipes