Japanese – 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

So Fuwafuwa!

15 Apr 201820 Apr 2018 Yelly

So apparently, according to a google search, fuwafuwa means fluffy, airy, light – like a pillow or foam.

A few months ago, I noticed an interesting photo on Ed T’s (@onehungryasian) instagram feed. He said he had a recipe for fluffy Japanese soufflé pancakes and I wanted to look at the recipe. I was on the verge of perfecting my version of a Japanese matcha cheesecake and I was curious about the pancakes, whether they would really be soufflé-esque. I noticed that one of the comments was this guy saying they were opening a pop-up for Japanese soufflé pancakes. I thought it would be good to find out where it was to try it so I knew what I was aiming for. I followed the Instagram account and thought I’d look through the feed later. And then I promptly forgot about it.

Then Ken Mok (@kingken_photography) wrote that he finally went to try the pancakes and they looked fabulously soft and pillowy. Exactly what the name of the purveyors of these heavenly pancakes meant: Fuwafuwa.

So since then, I’ve been thinking about these gorgeous pillows and wondering when I can go and taste them and find out for myself how they felt in my mouth!

Yesterday, we were going to London to see a friend who was going on a trip at the end of the month and we wanted to spend time with her before she flew off on her adventures. Alan suggested we stop over at Westfield in Stratford where Fuwafuwa (@fuwafuwalondon) had their pop up shop. It was just before 9AM and on Saturdays they open from 9AM until 9PM. I was looking forward to ordering the matcha pancakes, but they weren’t on the menu. So I settled on Nutella and banana and Alan ordered S’mores. But they changed the menu at the last minute and said they had the matcha pancakes and the lovely manager of Fuwafuwa allowed me to change my order from the Nutella and banana to the Matcha Love pancakes.

I absolutely LOVED them. They are as airy, soft, cloud like, light, pillowy and soufflé-esque as I built them up in my head to be. The matcha cream that accompanied my pancakes were generously flavoured with matcha and you could really taste the green tea, which I loved. They were also VERY generous with the red bean paste that was served on the side.

Alan’s S’mores pancakes were yummy with marshmallows and chocolatey goodness that reminded me of childhood memories of marshmallows and chocolates melted and sandwiched between two pieces of graham crackers. Alan’s pancakes were topped with a dusting of icing sugar and a couple of pretzels. Knowing I loved pretzels, Alan very generously shared one with me!

I need to know what the name of that lovely manager of FuwaFuwa is. He asked if he could take photos of our pancakes because, apparently, they were so busy that they rarely had time to photograph their heavenly creations. We, of course, obliged. I had brought my little Olympus EPL7 on this trip (I wanted to capture the cherry blossoms in London) so I was also busy snapping away with the sole purpose of posting it on Instagram. I was also determined to write about it on the blog. I offered to take photos of the pancakes with his phone.

He had a surprise for us though. There was a Salted Caramel Miso and Popcorn pancake option on the menu. I loved salted caramel. I loved popcorn. I loved miso soup. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted them all together on a plate. So I was more than a little dubious and didn’t order this particular flavour. He came back to our table and he gave us a double stack of the salted caramel miso and popcorn pancakes. To say thank you for waiting for the pancakes (they opened late) and for taking photos.

It was absolutely gorgeous! It was sweet and fabulously savoury with the crunch of the popcorn for brilliant texture. I know miso was good but I didn’t know that it would be a great flavour that could be used for sweet treats as well. You learn something new everyday.

Fuwa Fuwa London (@fuwafuwalondon on Instagram) is currently at their pop up at Westfield in Stratford City and according to Westfield’s website they will be open this week (16 April to 22 April) Monday to Friday from 10AM to 9PM, Saturday from 9AM to 9PM and on Sunday, 12PM to 6PM. They’ve just announced that Matcha Love will now be available on weekends too! I’d recommend going when you can and bringing a bag of patience with you because if you can’t get there early and be first in the queue, it might be a substantial wait. The pancakes are made to order and can take until 30 minutes to make and if they’re busy, the wait will be a little longer. I know 30 minutes might seem to be a bit too long to wait for pancakes, but they are very definitely worth it. It’s a heavenly party in your mouth!

Yelly Eats

Saturday night non-takeaway: Chicken Karaage!

21 Mar 201525 Mar 2015 Yelly

So tonight I finally made chicken karaage and it was good!

Well, when I say karaage, I use the term very loosely. Karaage is a Japanese dish of chicken marinated in ginger and garlic, soy and sake, and is fried to lovely crispy pieces. I don’t have sake in my cupboard on a regular basis (I’ve never had sake in my cupboard, ever!) but I do have shaoxing and sherry (as I cook more Chinese dishes than Japanese). So I tried substituting the sake with the shaoxing. I think it works. I will save up for sake, but for the meantime, shaoxing in the recipe works. And works well, if I say so myself!

Oh, I didn’t have potato flour (aka potato starch) as well, so I’ve substituted it with cornflour.

Ingredients:

500g chicken thigh fillets, cut into large-ish bite-sized chunks
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine
4 tablespoons soy sauce
3 heaping tablespoons cornflour
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, fish the chicken out of the bag and mix with the cornflour until all chicken pieces are well-coated with the cornflour
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!).