Chicken Karaage

Sometimes when I eat shit food that I know how to cook, I have a burning desire to remake it according to my taste buds. For me, this has been because I've been inflicting terrible chicken karaage on myself.

You'd think nothing could go wrong with a ginger, mirin and soy sauce marinated chicken that's been deep fried but you'd be wrong. The two offenders that come to mind recently are Kimono's, where the chicken is too bland, and has no crunchy outside. As well as Raku's, where it's too gingery and oddly puffy in their batter. Thankfully chicken karaage is something I've made since I was in high school.

Kimono's

Raku's

Chicken karaage is a really deceptively easy recipe, or at least I think so. Marinate your chicken overnight, dredge in panko/corn starch/ potato starch or some sort of batter and fry of a medium-high heat in oil deep enough to float in until golden brown. The only really difficult part of it is when you are frying off the chicken pieces, and hoping you don't risk food poisoning by having raw flash fried bits. However, that is easily tempered by cutting pieces of chicken open and checking.

This recipe is really easy, how do you know this? Because I taught my Boyfriend how to make this dish and he has weird paranoia about cooking chicken because he might get food poisoning. Every time we go grocery shopping, he refuses to get chicken as he's worried it will be under cooked and give him food poisoning. I made him almost a kilo of chicken karaage and he hasn't been sick yet.

Look how cute it is, causing your food poisoning

I've made this dish for the Jap kids, JGirl and Shishi, both of whom have given their approval. As well as my dad and Dr H. I think its impressive when you have the balls to cook someone food from their native country, they have the best knowledge of the traditionally made stuff, had strong fond memories and a firm idea of what it should taste like. Terrifying stuff.

Some ideas for this sorta thing, buy yourself some cheap mirin from an Asian grocer, I got mine for $2 for a bottle of about 300ml? Ditto for soy sauce, you don't notice much of a difference. Use more ginger as desired, but I prefer the smell of garlic to ginger, ginger is too cloying for me and I prefer more of a faint aroma but still noticeable.

Chicken Karaage

Uses: fancy lunch, impressing people, snack food

Ingredients/ratios:
500g+ Chicken thigh or drumstick pieces. Breast is too dry
1/4 cup soy sauce for every 500g of chicken
1/4 cup of mirin for every 500g of chicken
1 minced clove of garlic for every 200g of chicken
1 minced teaspoon of ginger for every 500g of chicken
Vegetable Oil
Sesame Oil
Eggs
Panko crumbs

Example:
For 1kg of chicken, use 1/2 cup of soy sauce and mirin, 5 cloves of garlic, 2 minced teaspoons of ginger and mix well.

Method:
1. Debone chicken pieces, slice into 3cm chunks.
2. Mince up ginger and garlic and throw on top of chicken. Add soy sauce. Splash in some sesame oil. Marinate in fridge for at least one hour, overnight is best.

Gross.

3. Put out a shallow plate with a beaten egg, I generally use one for every person I'm making chicken karaage for. If feeling stingy, using water and a bit of flour does the trick too. In another shallow dish, put out your panko crumbs. Make sure that its nice and close to the oil, with the plate of panko being closest to the oil, followed by the egg then the marinated chicken.

Closest to stove

Second closest, then chicken

4. Pick up a piece of chicken, dunk it in the egg mixture and then roll it in the panko. Once slightly drier, dunk it in the egg and back in the panko. Double dip for extra crunchiness. Repeat. Refill with panko as needed.

MORE PANKO MORE

5. Fill a tall pot with vegetable oil until its deep enough to comfortably deep fry a chunk of your chicken. Alternatively, I guess you could shallow fry it, but laziness and unhealthiness says deep fry. Its also slightly easier in a tall pot since the oil spatter will hopefully be contained.
6. On medium high, I don't know how to describe the heat, but you should be able to feel it on the palm of your hand 4cms above the top of the pot. It should feel hot but not uncomfortably, so that you snatch your hand away from it. Heat until you get to that stage.
7. Put in several pieces of chicken, don't overcrowd. You should see faint bubbling, if your oil hisses/sizzles at you, that is too damn hot and you should turn it down. If deep frying, once your chicken pieces float and turn a nice golden brown colour, remove from the oil.

Like this!

There is no picture of the cooked karaage. We ate it all.