The making of Panko breadcrumbs

A rare view into how Panko is created. Panko is used in a lot of japanese recipes; perhaps most notably in the making of Tonkatsu, deep-fried pork-'schnitzel'.

The process is explained in the video and in the japanese text displayed in it, which I can't read so don't ask me about the specifics please!

In general, it concerns a specific way of bread-making (in industrial-size containers); a dough is created, it's left to rise, it's split into smaller portions and then gets either of two treatments:

Either it's 'baked' much as one does with regular bread, which creates a white-bread with brown crust

OR it's baked in special containers (blue) using a procedure which seems to involve the use of steam to prevent any brown crust from forming, resulting in an entirely white crustless type of bread. The bread is then shredded in a very effictive-looking high-speed rotary shredder before being packaged and distributed.

In case you havent used or seen Panko before, think of it's consistency as 'the crusty stuff on a Kentucky Fried Chicken leg/nugget. It's much more 'fluffy/crispy' than your regular bread-crumbs tend to be. Fastfood/food-industry giants have been using it for years to make those extra nice deef-fry foodstuffs.

Look for Panko in your neighborhood asian food store.