Pork Cutlets

Pork cutlets is a dish from my childhood. Loved it. Still do. Best eaten with grainy, white rice and the tomato sauce (onions, tomato ketchup, water, tomato wedges). Good as leftovers too either with rice again, bread, or by itself. Delicious finger food. When I was eating pork cutlets for lunch at work (back when we were still living in Southern California), someone came in and called them meatballs. I think I winced inwardly as they were not meatballs to me, they were pork cutlets. Of course they were often described as meatballs because of their shape and pork cutlets around here are not shaped like meatballs.

I found this second definition of cutlet from Answers.com:
A patty of chopped meat or fish, usually coated with bread crumbs and fried; a flat croquette. Okay, I can breathe again.

I prefer pork and chicken to beef (unless it's another old favourite like beef with kai lan) which is another reason why I enjoy eating these cutlets. The pork cutlets that I love and know so well are minced or ground pork mixed with mashed potatoes, soy sauce, salt, pepper, chopped green onions then coated with egg and bread crumbs and fried in hot oil. Those are the ingredients I remember. I sometimes use Italian bread crumbs instead of Plain or a combination of both. I have yet to try it with panko bread crumbs but maybe I will one of these days. The crunchier, the better.

Mine have a tendency to get rather dark too quickly when I fry a second or third batch in the pan for the oil gets too hot. I usually fry them over a medium heat. I wanted them crisp on the outside and I also wanted the meat cooked on the inside. I've been pretty successful so far and we enjoy a pork cutlet and rice dinner every so often. And if there wasn't any of the tomato sauce left, I'd usually heat up the leftover cutlets in the microwave oven (no longer crispy but at least they were hot) and then eaten with rice and bottled sambal oelek. There had to be some sort of sauce or chilli accompaniment and there have been times when I wished I also had sambal belachan at home. Now that would have been delicious as well.



These pork cutlets remind me of my Singapore home, my childhood, and the people around me at the time including, or especially, Ah Eng, Ah Yeng and Ah Choo, who cooked and cleaned for us at different times over the years. And I remember Ah Eng the most because I actually remember her frying the pork cutlets (either for lunch or dinner) and I would go into the kitchen and ask to sample one or two (or three!) that were already cooked. Another nice memory and maybe that's the best part of all. Plus they taste good.