J: Yeah. Those were the two when we looked at the all together that we thought looked like the most… That we would never think to try on our own.
CM: Oh, okay.
J: It seemed like they were going to be very intimidating techniques and we were like, “Okay, so let’s just dive in if we’re going to do it. Let’s just rip the band-aid off.”
CM: Intimidating techniques, just hammering a poor piece of meat into submission. Oh my gosh.
J: You know what it was? I think because I’ve never thought to pound a pork cutlet that I was like, “Oh, are you allowed to do that to pork? Will it make it too tough? Will it make it gross?”
CM: The rules you have.
J: I’m telling you this is way… I did not think this was going to be such a psychological deep dive just to get a few recipes.
CM: Well, obviously I’m so delighted that you did both recipes because they showcase very different techniques and methods. Let’s start with talking through the faster recipe, the crispy pork cutlets with kimchi slaw.
J: Yeah, and I don’t want to give anything away, but this actually was not technically the faster recipe for me of the two.
IA: Oh.
CM: Now is the time to give things away. I just want to make that clear. Here’s where you just got to put all your cards on the table. It was not the faster recipe.
J: This was not the faster, to the point of where my husband came in the kitchen and was like, “Okay, what do you want me to do to move this along?” And I’m like, “No, I can do this. I know I can do this.”
CM: What happened?
J: Yeah, so I think it was the multiple steps to this. It wasn’t just making the cutlets. It was that I had to then think about assembling the slaw. And so it wasn’t technically the pork itself probably, but compared to the other one that was just kind of brown, throw things in and literally go back to work for a couple of hours. It actually was more hands-on than the other one.
CM: Wow. Yeah, that makes sense. There’s a recipe that takes 45 minutes, but it’s all active time and it’s very, very hands-on. And then yeah, there’s a three-hour recipe, but it’s mostly hands off.
IA: The pot is doing most of the work for you.
CM: Yeah. Was the flour, egg, panko dredge, that three-part dredge, did that feel intimidating? Was that a new sort of technique for you?
J: No. So when I make a traditional chicken cutlet, I’m just kind of fast with it and I’ll just do egg and breadcrumb and move on.
CM: You do not do the flour?
J: I do not do the flour part. Just because I feel like I don’t know if I notice that much of a difference. And my kids watch a lot of cooking videos and things online and my son was like, “Why don’t we do the three step?” I’m like, “Who told you this?” So he was like, “These people know what they’re doing. They make you do flour.” I was like, “All right, relax.”