Trim the chicken breast and slice the chicken to half of its original thickness.
Place the chicken in a zip lock bag. Add 2 tbs shio koji and ½ tsp garlic powder. *1
Zip up the bag and massage the koji and garlic powder well into the chicken.
Refrigerate the chicken for 30 minutes to let it marinate.
Remove the shio koji and garlic powder mixture off the meat.
Make the batter. Crack the egg, and add water and mayonnaise into a medium sized mixing bowl. Combine them well. Add the flour and mix them all together.
Dip the chicken breast to coat it with batter, then cover it thoroughly in panko crumbs.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. To check the oil temperature, drop a small piece of panko crumb into the oil. If it sinks half way to the bottom and floats back up to the surface with small bubbles around it, the oil is the perfect temperature.
Deep fry the panko crumbed chicken breast for about 2 minutes on one side, then turn it over carefully and fry for another 2 minutes on the other side.
When you lift the chicken up out of the oil with wooden chopsticks, you will feel a little vibration when the meat is cooked.
Cut the chicken into 2 cm wide pieces (if you are going to eat with chopsticks) *2
Serve with green salad leaves and a sliced lemon
Video
Notes
*1 If you cannot get shio koji, you can skip process 2-5 and use chicken thigh instead if you don’t like the dryness of the chicken breast. *2 Usually any large pieces of meat are sliced because we tend to use chopsticks to eat. If you use a knife and fork then you can choose to skip slicing the katsu.Please note: Nutritional information (calories) are an indication only as it is hard to estimate the amount of oil used for deep frying. Green salad leaves are not included in calories.