By Andrew Hunter, Contributing Editor
I’ve got to hand it to my dad. He’s 75 years old, lives in suburban Michigan and shakes up his comfort zone just by ordering the chow mein at his local Chinese restaurant. And while his culinary conservatism takes nothing away from his value as a parent, it makes him less than ideal as an audience for his son, the chef. Try as I might, I just can’t get Dad to warm up to my métier, Asian cuisine.
But after years of plying him with everything from “authentic" Burmese tea-leaf salad to “authentic" Korean bulgogi, I realized that “authentic" isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And for that, I have katsu sauce to thank.
Katsu sauce is Japan’s answer to Western steak sauce and, authentic or not, it proved an instant hit with Dad. He didn’t care about its Japanese origins, or its traditional accompaniment of breaded pork cutlets. He didn’t even care about the puréed fruits and vegetables in the recipe. All that mattered to him was that it tasted delicious.
As a selling point, you can’t argue with “delicious." The American palate is more cosmopolitan than ever, yet many consumers, like my dad, still eye the “authentic" with wariness. Whether leery of a fish sauce that may be too fishy or a chile paste that may be too fiery, their cautiousness—and our reluctance as culinary professionals to “mess around" with time-honored cuisines—erects barriers that can keep the most captivating Asian sauces from hitting it big in America.
By emphasizing deliciousness over authenticity—and by featuring Asian sauces in ways that even my dad can crave—we give Asian flavors just the introduction they need to gain a foothold with the mainstream. If we can do so while keeping authenticity intact, bonus points for us. If we can’t, at least we’ve scored another convert willing to give unsung Asian sauces a try.
Katsu Crossing
Americans love barbecue sauce with pork not because our culinary heritage tells us to, but because the flavor profile of the former perfectly complements the latter. Likewise, the ingredients in katsu sauce make any kind of protein—whether pork prepared in a Japanese katsu shop or burgers from my dad’s backyard grill—more appealing.
Katsu sauce is like Worcestershire sauce filtered through a Japanese lens—a vehicle for umami that heightens savory flavors. The base derives sweetness from puréed apples and sugar, acidity from vinegar, and savory depth from naturally brewed soy sauce. Layered onto that are puréed tomatoes, onions and carrots, which add their own umami richness.
None of these elements would be unfamiliar to the American palate on their own. Puréed vegetables are the basis of many of our classic stocks and sauces. But it’s how they combine in katsu—how the finished sauce delivers a jolt of fruity sweetness atop its tangy-umami foundation—that makes it so compelling.
In Japan, you’ll find katsu sauce served not only with the breaded pork cutlets called tonkatsu (similar to Wiener schnitzel), but with the addictive battered-and-fried octopus dumplings known as takoyaki. For those who’ve discovered the sensory synergy between french fries and steak sauce, the Japanese penchant for dribbling katsu on their korokke—deep-fried potato croquettes that resemble overgrown tater tots—will come as no surprise.
These applications should fly with American palates, as many are riffs on our own familiar snacks and street foods. What’s more, the liberality with which the Japanese deploy katsu sauce should ease pressure on Western product developers afraid of breaking culinary rules; after all, if chefs in Japan can reinterpret Wiener schnitzel to suit their customers’ tastes, why can’t we adapt katsu to our own?
And katsu sauce is adaptable. Setting aside obvious applications like stir-fry kits and frozen Asian noodle bowls, consider blending it into marinades, dips and even meatballs or burger mixes. It amps up the flavors in fillings for Asian-style dumplings like gyoza, and I even pair it with fried chicken, whether Southern-fried or Japanese kara-áge-style—marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic and lightly dusted with cornstarch before being deep-fried to a toasty finish.
Manufacturers and foodservice operators can dry-blend their own kara-áge coatings or turn to prepared mixes to eliminate mess and save labor. Ready-made katsu sauces also ease production, and many exhibit freeze/thaw and thermal stability thanks to the inclusion of functional starches.
Sriracha spice
Winning my dad over to katsu was a personal triumph, but I’m still trying to sell him on sriracha, the orange-red chile sauce that you once only saw in Vietnamese or Thai restaurants, but that now—in modified form—accompanies Red Robin Gourmet Burgers’ breaded mushroom appetizer, and even McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets.
