Donkkaseu: An old-school Korean pork chop

Su Scott, author of the recently published cookbook, Rice Table: Korean Recipes and Stories to Feed the Soulhe fondly remembers his first taste soa thin slice of lean pork, typically cut from the far side, breaded and dipped in boiling hot oil until golden and crispy, then drizzled with a brown sauce similar to a thick gravy.

Donkkaseu is often compared to Japanese tonkatsu, a panko-coated pork cutlet that is served in slices, although the Korean version is served whole. Scott remembers her first donkkaseu covered in a “thick, rich brown sauce” that, she writes, is “vaguely based on demi-glace,” a reduction of beef or veal stock used as a base for countless French sauces, with a perfect touch of L’acidità. Fried pork shared the plate with cold macaroni salad and shredded cabbage swirled with ketchup and mayonnaise.

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Scott first tried donkkaseu as a child in Seoul, where his family enjoyed weekend dinners gyeongyangsiks. These restaurants, which were popular in the 1970s and 1980s, serve Korean food with Western twists; dishes were eaten with a knife and fork as opposed to chopsticks. It was at a special gyeongyangsik where Scott had that memorable first bite of the crispy pork cutlet.

“The place always felt so special to me because it was the first time I had something completely new,” Scott said. “The strong memories of the restaurant and how it made me feel at the time have stayed with me, but unfortunately, the place no longer exists.”

Donkkaseu is still served in restaurants around South Korea, but it’s also easy to make at home. Scott shares a recipe for his take on the dish, called Old-School Pork Cutlet, in his cookbook.

Scott’s food career began after moving to London in 2000 when he was 19, but really took off after winning a Monthly Food Observer Award in 2019 for a recipe based on his mother kimchi jjigae. The rustic and spicy stew, typically made with pork belly, tofu and kimchi, was voted Best Readers’ Recipe by The Observer’s food magazine.

“At the time, I was struggling with [an] identity crisis and recovery from postnatal depression after the birth of my daughter. It was the dish that first brought me the taste of home that I really missed. The recipe was very personal to me, carrying so many layers of emotion, which eventually became the reason and motivation to further explore my heritage through taste memories,” said Scott.

Rice Table came about as a result of Scott’s identity issues with the heavy responsibility of being the sole bearer of Korean culture and heritage to his half-Korean, half-British daughter. When he wrote, he was inspired by donkkaseu and other dishes from his childhood.

“I was too busy and too eager to integrate [and] make a new home for me in the city that I fell madly in love with, “Scott explained. “In the process, I lost everything that makes me Korean, including my ability to speak my mother tongue fluently. It was just for cooking the dishes of my childhood [that] I can connect and rebuild my Korean heritage.”

In Rice Table, Scott outlines a series of recipes commonly known as bapsang, which represents what she describes as a “very ordinary spread of the everyday home-cooked meals that sustain us.” Scott added: “I wanted to celebrate how food can connect the small pieces together to make us feel whole.”

One of those dishes is donkkaseu, which was first brought to Korea during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s. Donkkaseu is believed to be heavily inspired by European classics, such as Italian veal Milanese, French and Austrian and German escalope. schnitzel. At that time, the dish was only enjoyed by the wealthy in Korea; pork was expensive, as was the huge amount of oil needed to fry the cutlet. But today, two versions of donkkaseu are eaten throughout South Korea – the thin cutlet popularized by the spread of gyeongyangsik restaurants, and a thicker version. introduced by US soldiers during the 1980safter the Korean War.

Scott’s thinner version of the old-school pork cutlet recipe is a fairly simple and very comforting dish. Although the pork must be fried, it only takes four minutes to cook once marinated for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. To tenderize the meat, Scott recommends using a meat mallet or needle tenderizer to tenderize the pork, although a rolling pin or the back of a knife can be used. She also strongly suggests following the steps of the recipe precisely to recreate the dish exactly as it was when she experienced it for the first time.

Once pounded, the pork is marinated in a blitzed mixture of milk, onion, garlic powder and salt to season and help tenderize the meat before it is dredged in flour, beaten eggs and panko breading in preparation for frying . While marinating pork, a simple sauce is made, reaching a precise balance of sweet, salty, bitter, spicy and sour notes. It is then poured over the pork and served alongside shredded coleslaw, like the one that accompanies Scott’s first donkkaseu.