Tonakatsu Biscuit recipes
A basic buttermilk brine for pork or chicken.
Buttermilk brine
1 cup water
1/3 cup fine sea salt
1/4 cup agave syrup
5 peppercorns
3 whole cloves
2 whole bay leaves
1 large clove garlic, in thirds
1 cup buttermilk
6 ice cubes
1. Heat 1 cup water to boil, add sea salt and stir until dissolved. Reduce heat to low and add spices and syrup or sugar. Let steep for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Add buttermilk and ice cubes.
2. Soak larger cuts of meat for 24 hours, smaller cuts for 12 hours, chops for 4 to 8 hours.
Tonkatsu sauce
2 large red bell peppers
1 medium apple
1 small carrot
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons agave syrup
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/8 tablespoons shoyu
1/8 cup Japanese Worcestershire sauce (or Lee & Perrins)
1. Finely chop fruit and vegetables. Sweat in a non-stick pan, using water as needed to aid in softening vegetables.
2. Add in agave syrup, wine vinegar, shoyu and Worcestershire sauce and bring to simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Add to blender and hit puree, it should be fairly smooth. If I had a better blender it would have been as smooth as ketchup.
4. Adjust for salt and acid, it always needs a little more. In essence, this is Japanese ketchup. Some brands add some ketchup or tomato to the mix. For this use, I didn't. Let sit for a few hours in the fridge to meld flavors.
Biscuit
3 cup pastry flour
3 cup AP flour
1 T sugar
2 T baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 T salt
12 ounces fat
2-1/4 cups buttermilk
1. In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift or whisk. I prefer to whisk, it seems to work best for me.
2. I use frozen lard or shortening, it doesn't have to be. Working from frozen gives me time to futz around and not have to be too gentle. I use a knife and simply chop the frozen fat into slivers.
3. Add the slivered (or grated, you could grate it) fat to the flour and cut into the flour. Real bakers use their hands, mine are too warm, so I use a pastry cutter and chop the mixture until it is like coarse sand in texture
4. Add buttermilk straight from fridge, and stir until the dough comes together. You have two options here. I chose option A
A. Work dough just until it comes together, turn out onto floured surface and knead just until it will hold together and is not sticky. It is very tender at this point. Pat out and cut into biscuits, or tear off chunks and place on cookie sheet.
B. Add an additional 1/8 cup of buttermilk and knead the dough in the bowl until it comes together, turn out and roll dough into large sheet, fold dough into thirds, turn 90 degrees, and roll and fold, then roll and cut biscuits. These will be very flaky layers.
5. Place onto heavy baking sheets, I use parchment, but, grease works fine too. Place biscuits onto pan, either close or far apart, opinions vary. Brush tops with melted butter and into preheated 375 degrees F oven for 12 to 15 minutes.
6. Immediately upon removing from oven, brush tops with melted butter again.
