Wasabi and panko crusted pork with gingered soy sauce

This recipe is yet another one from one of my favorite publications, Cooking Light. The panko crusted pork is an interpretation of one of my favorite Japanese dishes, tonkatsu. Dipped in a gingered soy sauce and serve with rice, you have a complete meal.

Wasabi and Panko-crusted Pork with Gingered Soy Sauce

Recipe from Cooking Light

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

2/3 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)

1 large egg white, lightly beaten

4 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops (about 1/2 inch thick)

1 tsp peanut oil

Cooking spray

1/8 tsp salt

1 tbsp bottled ground fresh ginger (such as Spice World) 

1/3 cup fat-free less-sodium chicken broth

2 tbsp sake or dry sherry

2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp wasabi paste

1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions

Directions

1. Place panko in a shallow dish. Place egg white in another shallow dish. Dip pork in egg white; dredge in panko.
2. Heat peanut oil in a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat; add pork. Cook for 4 minutes on each side or until done. Remove pork from pan; sprinkle with salt.
3. Reduce heat to medium. Add ginger to pan; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Combine broth and next 4 ingredients (through wasabi) in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add broth mixture to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Stir in green onions. Spoon sauce over pork.

Nutritional Analysis:
per serving (1 pork chip and 1 tbsp sauce): 215 calories, 6.8g fat (2.1g saturated, 2.9g polyunsaturated, 0.8g monounsaturated), 10.8g carbohydrates, 0.9g fiber, 24.5g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

I approached this recipe a bit differently mainly because I was using pork loin instead of pork chops. Pork loin is a very lean type of meat with very little fat; this means that it is drier than other cuts of pork, but this can be easily fixed.

First slice your loin into 1 inch thick pieces. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

Using a mallet, pound the slices into 1/4-1/2 inch thick portions. If you want to keep your mallet clean you can wrap it with plastic wrap or place the pork in between layers of plastic. By pounding the meat, you are in effect tenderizing it.

You can see the difference between the pounded and unpounded portions. Having thinner portions also allows the pork to cook quicker, preventing any from getting burned or too brown.

Dip the pork in the egg whites followed by the panko. 

Heat oil in a pan and when it is hot, add the pork. I chose vegetable oil instead of peanut oil since there are several people with nut allergies. 

You need just enough oil to cook half the pork. When you are ready to flip the portion, you should see a golden line around the edges, showing you up to where the pork has cooked. Now when you flip the pork over, there should be enough oil to cook up to that golden line. Add more oil if necessary. 

If you are making these ahead of time, you can reheat the pork in the oven at 350 degrees. Since the pork is lean, it should not get soggy as you are reheating them.

For the sauce, I chose to cook it in a clean pot since there were bits of panko left in the pan. Many people cannot handle heat well at my work, so the wasabi was omitted. Even still the sauce was delicious! Crispy pork with a sweet and salty sauce with a hint of ginger, what can be better? Serve the pork on top of a bed of rice, and pour the sauce so the rice can soak up that flavor as well.