how-to – Yellywelly

How to make: Chicken Karaage

10 Mar 2019 Yelly

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.

Yelly Eats

Chocolate crinkles

24 Sep 20168 Aug 2017 Yelly

Over a week ago, I gave in to the urge to finally make chocolate crinkles. It’s a popular cookie in the Philippines. It’s rich, indulgent and fudgy. It’s something that might just make you go mmmmm. I approached the idea of making crinkles with a little trepidation. I always worry that my memories of what things taste like in Manila is different from reality. But I did manage to work up the courage to finally make crinkles!

I’ve written a recipe that I’ve tweaked below and I know that it works. I would love for y’all to make chocolate crinkles and let me know if the recipe works for you.

Ingredients:

150g unsweetened cocoa powder
280g caster sugar
150ml vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
300g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ salt
150g icing sugar

Directions:

In a bowl, using a balloon whisk, mix the flour, salt and baking powder together and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine the cocoa powder, sugar and oil. To mix, I’ll use a free-standing mixer.

With a paddle attachment, on the lowest setting (just so that the cocoa powder doesn’t fly all over the place), start mixing the cocoa powder, sugar and oil for about 2 minutes. Once the mixture forms a thick paste, increase the speed and mix for a further 2 minutes. The mixture should turn shiny and smooth. Add each egg individually and mix until the mixture is again shiny. Once all the eggs are added, add the vanilla.

Add the flour mixture and mix until well-incorporated and the mixture is smooth.

Cover the mixture and chill in the fridge for at least 2½ hours (I initially only chilled it for 1½ hours and it seemed to be okay), the longer you chill it, the better.

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. I like to use a small ice cream scoop or a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon.

Scoop a generous 1 tablespoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Coat each ball with icing sugar and place on the lined sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Once the cookies are baked, take them out of the oven and allow to cool on the sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies have a recognisable cracked surface and that’s how you know it’s a chocolate crinkle!

This recipe makes about 40 crinkles.

Yelly Eats

Perfect rice!

13 Jul 201230 Sep 2013 Yelly

Rice is a staple in the Filipino diet. I think the first thing a Filipino does when they move to another country is to find out the nearest place they can get rice from. Most of our dishes are best served with rice. It’s no wonder that quite possibly, the first thing one learns to cook is rice.

I’ve been cooking rice since I was 11 years old and I’ve had my fair share of burnt, overcooked and undercooked rice episodes. But for the past 10 or so years, I’ve managed to figure out how to NOT burn rice–without using a rice cooker. This is cooking rice over a hob WITHOUT HAVING TO LIFT THE LID 🙂 and you should be able to produce bowl after bowl of fluffy, white, perfectly steamed rice!

Measure your rice and place it in the pot. Wash the rice twice, each time draining as much water as you can from the pot.
Using the cup that you measured your rice with, use this rice to water ratio: for every 1 measured cup of rice, use 1 1/2 cup of water minus 1/2 cup of water. Confusing? Let me try to make it clearer, for 2 cups of rice use 2 1/2 cups of water (1 1/2 cups water x 2 = 3, then subtract 1/2 a cup = 2 1/2; for 1 1/2 cups of rice use 1 3/4 cups of water, etc.).
Place the pot over a hob on medium high heat until it reaches a rolling boil (the stage when it starts to bubble, at the lid starts making a rattling noise and you start to see steam coming out from under the lid. this is usually 4-5 mins after placing the pot over the hob). Remove from heat for 5 mins.
Turn down the hob to a medium low setting and return the pot to cook for a further 5 mins. Then remove the pot from the heat and allow to rest for 5 mins.
The next step, really, is to enjoy your fluffy, steamed rice 🙂

Note to self: take a picture of the rice when you cook it again.