How to make: Chicken Karaage

I’ve been unwell and when I’m unwell my body craves comfort food. Unfortunately, this means I have to cook said comfort food. Not that I mind so much, because I do love to putter about in the kitchen. It’s just that this weekend, I’ve been left with so little energy that I, almost, couldn’t be bothered.

I’ve had chicken karaage from a few places and I must say that this is probably one of my favourite versions of fried chicken (closely rivalled by Korean fried chicken — soy ginger please!).

I’ve tweaked my version of chicken karaage, and this time, I’m using mirin, instead of using Shaoxing rice wine, in the original recipe I posted, funnily enough, almost 4 years ago. Chicken karaage uses sake, which I have never had the pleasure of tasting. I’ve switched to using Japanese mirin to inch closer to finding out what home cooked karaage tastes like.

I do love it though and I hope you will too! As always, if you try any of my recipes, I would love to hear from you and your cooking experience.

Ingredients:

500g chicken thigh fillets, cut into large-ish bite-sized chunks
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons mirin
4 tablespoons light soy sauce
100g plain flour
100g cornflour
1 tsp salt
vegetable oil for deep-frying

Directions:

In a ziplock bag, combine chicken, ginger, garlic and soy. Carefully massage the chicken through the bag and marinade for at least 1 hour (better if you let the chicken marinade overnight though).
In a bowl, mix the cornflour, flour and salt, and coat the chicken pieces with the cornflour-flour mixture until the pieces are dry to the touch.
In a frying pan, heat up the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot enough, carefully drop chicken pieces and fry until golden brown (should take about 3-4 minutes).
Serve with a slice of lemon or a teriyaki sauce, on its own or over a bed of fluffy steamed rice! Speaking of rice, I wrote a post on how to cook rice perfectly (I’ve been cooking rice since I was 11 so I like to think I know what I’m talking about – way before there were non-stick pans!).

Here’s a little recipe on sticky sauce that goes well with the karaage.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
200ml water

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Once boiling turn the heat right down and allow to reduce until there is only half of the liquid, making sure that you stir occasionally so that none of the sugar burns. This is brilliant as a little sauce to be sprinkled (sparingly) on steamed rice if you’re having friend chicken or fish.