Kushikatsu (Osaka-Style Deep-Fried Skewers)
Cuisine: Japanese
Region: 大阪府
Servings: 12本分（2〜3人分）
Kushikatsu (Osaka-Style Deep-Fried Skewers) is a home-style meat dish. Ingredients and step-by-step instructions are below, with notes for home cooking.
Ingredients
- 200 g beef round (a firmer cut; stewing beef works too)
- A little salt and pepper
- 1/2 onion
- 6 quail eggs (boiled)
- 4 large peeled shrimp
- 4 cm lotus root
- [Batter] 100 g cake flour
- [Batter] 1 egg
- [Batter] 120 ml water
- [Batter] A pinch of salt
- Fine panko, as needed (about 80 g)
- Oil for deep-frying
- [Sauce] 120 ml Worcestershire sauce
- [Sauce] 2 tbsp chuno (medium-thick) sauce
- [Sauce] 3 tbsp water
- 1/8 cabbage
Steps
- Cut the beef into pieces about 3 cm square and 1 cm thick and season with salt and pepper. Cut the onion into 2 cm wedges. Peel the lotus root, cut it into 1 cm half-moons, soak in water and pat dry. Devein the shrimp.
- Thread the ingredients onto bamboo skewers (12–15 cm): roughly 2–3 pieces of beef, 2 quail eggs, or 1–2 pieces each of onion, shrimp and lotus root per skewer, keeping them flat.
- [Batter] Beat the egg in a bowl, add the water, then the flour and salt, and whisk until smooth. It should be slightly thinner than pancake batter.
- [Sauce] Mix the Worcestershire sauce, chuno sauce and water and pour into a deep container you can dunk whole skewers in. Cut the cabbage into large pieces, soak in ice water and drain.
- Dip each skewer in the batter, let the excess drip off, then coat all over with panko and press lightly. A thin, even coat of fine panko is the secret to a light, crisp texture.
- Heat the oil to 175–180 °C and fry a few skewers at a time: vegetables and quail eggs for 1½ minutes, shrimp for 2 minutes and beef for 2–3 minutes, until the coating is golden and crisp.
- Drain, then dunk the skewers straight into the sauce while hot and eat. The cabbage is a palate cleanser. If you want more sauce, scoop it up with a piece of cabbage and pour it over the skewer.
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Notes
Never putting a skewer you've bitten back into the shared sauce — the "no double-dipping" rule — is a key rule at Osaka kushikatsu shops. At home, give each person their own sauce and nobody has to worry.
Other classic fillings include pork, chikuwa, asparagus, shiitake, red pickled ginger, cheese and mochi.
If the coating is too thick, it soaks up oil and turns heavy. After dipping in batter, wipe off the excess firmly on the rim of the bowl before coating with panko.
When the oil temperature drops, the coating tends to come away. Don't put in too many skewers at once.
Origin and history
Kushikatsu is an Osaka speciality of beef, vegetables, seafood and all sorts of other ingredients threaded onto skewers, coated in batter and panko and fried until crisp. You dunk them hot in a shared sauce, and the "no double-dipping" rule — never putting a skewer back in the sauce once it has touched your mouth — is famous across Japan.
Accounts of its origin vary, but it is said to have been born in Osaka's Shinsekai district, home of the Tsutenkaku tower, around the end of the Taisho era and the start of the Showa era. It reportedly began as thin beef in a thick batter, fried so that people working nearby could eat cheaply, quickly and fill up.
After the war, more and more shops served kushikatsu as a fried dish people could eat with confidence. In the 2000s, kushikatsu chains expanded nationwide as an "Osaka speciality", and the name spread rapidly. Today it is enjoyed everywhere from casual standing bars to restaurants using luxury ingredients.