My Twisting of a Pork Cutlet Dish I Enjoyed in South Korea


     I believe that food prep, cooking, and eating are recreational activities.  Also, I believe twisting customary ways of enjoying food can be exciting!  This venture was exciting to me from beginning to end, and I'm already thinking of another way to twist it all up a bit!

    I'm not trying to instruct anyone.  I'm simply sharing a bit of my own journey as I lap around the sun! 

     "Donkkaseu" is how I've seen the spelling to the name of pork cutlet dish I've enjoy so many times while living in South Korea.  I've always pronounced it "Doeng gahs seh" (the first "o" sound is like the "o" in "home," the middle "a" sound is like "ahhhhhh," and the "eu" at the end is like "eh" to my ears).  The hard "g" and the "k" sounds are made with the same Korean letter.  So one could say it's pronounced like g/k combined.

     I'm not a guru about this, so I do stand to be corrected.

     I've heard / read that this dish started in Europe... then went to Japan... then to Korea.  Each location has enjoyed its own twists due to its own reasons.  Anyway, I was living in South Korea (for five years) when I enjoyed this pork cutlet meal many times.

     Every time it was served to me, no matter where I was in South Korea, it was served with slaw, rice, and a brown sauce.  The slaw had a drizzle of ketchup and a drizzle of mayonnaise on top.  Sometimes, there was a piece or two of fruit in the slaw.  Sometimes, the brown sauce was placed on the pork cutlet.  Sometimes, it was served in a side dish.  It was always a mixture of sweet and soy sauce savory in taste.  Sometimes the pork cutlet was sliced.  Sometimes not.  Still, basically, it's a tenderized pork cutlet battered and fried in oil.




     I removed the outer leaves of the Bok Choy (Asian Cabbage), chopped them, and bagged them with ingredients I used to make Kimchee (my own twist of course).  I shredded and bagged the inner parts so that it could chill thoroughly in the fridge.

    I went on ahead and mixed mayonnaise with ketchup and coated the cabbage before I served it on my plate.








     I asked myself, "I wonder how this would taste if I used a sweet and sour sauce I made from the plum and apple cores that remained after I chunked a freezer bag full of plums and apple without the soy sauce!


     After tenderizing the cutlet with the back of my knife, I coated it with salt, pepper, and flour and placed it in a ziplock baggie, and placed in the fridge for a couple of days.  That allowed the coating to become gummy, so it adhered better to the cutlet.

     I made my own bread crumbs by pulsing some plain Italian / French bread in my food processor.  I only needed about a cup full, so I kept the rest in a baggie and put it in the fridge.

     While the oil heated up in my wok, I cracked and scrambled an egg in a wide salad bowl.  In another wide salad bowl, I place my bread crumbs.  I prepared about 1 cup of instant rice.  

     After dipping the floured cutlet in the egg wash, I coated it with bread crumbs.  I had a little bit of egg wash left, so I stirred it in with the hot rice with some salt, pepper, and butter.  

     As you can see in the picture below, I placed some of the sweet and sour sauce on top of the hot rice.  On top of that I placed the cutlet I fried in oil, blotted off the excess oil, and sliced.


      Did I use chopsticks to eat this meal?  Yes!  (see top photo)



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