Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu (豚カツ, とんかつ or トンカツ, pork cutlet), is a Japanese food made of cutlet. It consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick and sliced into bite-sized pieces, generally served with shredded cabbage and/or miso soup. Either a pork fillet (ヒレ, hire) or pork loin (ロース, rōsu) cut may be used; the meat is usually salted, peppered, dredged lightly in flour, dipped into beaten egg and then coated with panko (bread crumbs) before being deep fried.

It was introduced to Japan by the Portuguese. It was originally considered a type of yōshoku—Japanese versions of European cuisine invented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—and was called katsuretsu (cutlet) or simply katsu.

Early katsuretsu was usually beef; the pork version, similar to today's tonkatsu, is said to have been first served in 1890 in a Western-food restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo. The term "tonkatsu" (pork katsu) was coined in the 1930s.

Tonkatsu in Korea is known as donkkaseu (돈까스) or donkaseu (돈가스), a simple transliteration of the Japanese word to Korean. Saengseonkkaseu (생선까스 fish katsu) is a Korean fish cutlet modeled on the Japanese dish.