Chicken Karaage is Mr He’s must-order food whenever he tries different Japanese restaurants.

It’s his way of rating Japanese restaurants. He said: “Good Japanese restaurants must have authentic Japanese fried chicken and dragon roll with eel.”

Eww eel ◑﹏◐, I prefer ramen a lot better.

We have not found any Japanese fried chicken that can satisfy his taste buds lately, so I’m going to show him he already has the best at home!

Should I use chicken leg or chicken breast?

It seems to be an important factor in American culture – white meat is considered healthy meat, and dark meat, on the other hand, not so much.

However, Asian foodies always prefer chicken legs and wings (dark meat) over chicken breast (white meat) simply due to they are juicier and more flavorful!

Off the topic, but is dark meat really unhealthy? Not really! According to  foodsmart:

“White meat has less fat and fewer calories, which is why doctors have long advocated choosing it over dark. When compared ounce-for-ounce however, the nutritional differences between the two are not all that great.”

In a word, compared with chicken breast, chicken legs are tastier and equal healthy, and even cheaper. 

Therefore, I’d highly recommend using boneless skin-on chicken legs (either chicken drumsticks or chicken thighs) to make this Japanese fried chicken. 

Tutorials for how to debone chicken legs:

Coating for Japanese Fried Chicken

Coating is an important step in Japanese fried chicken (Karaage), as the word “Karaage” means small coated food pieces fried in oil.

Does it have to be sweet potato starch?

The answer is: Recommended but not necessarily.

You can pick almost any kind of coating of your choice:

• If you use wheat flour or cornstarch, it would look more like the American style buttermilk fried chicken.

• And if you use potato starch, the coating would be lighter and crispier.

• My favorite coating is sweet potato starch, which is closer to the potato starch side but it would form extra coating particles outside the chicken.

Note: When you buy sweet potato starch for this dish, try looking for those with worlds like “thick” or “coarse” (粗) on the packages, instead of those finely ground (细) ones. See pictures below:

 

Double Fry the Chicken

You have probably seen this double frying technique in so many of my recipes, such as Fried Bananas, Bubble Potato Pillows…

So why bother doing two rounds of deep frying?

It turns out that double frying would make the chicken less oily, much crispier and prettier.

• In the first round of deep frying, we use a lower temperature (325 °F/160 °C) to fry the meat for a relatively longer time (3 minutes). During this period, the heat from oil can gradually reach the center part of the meat to fully cook them. 
• We use a higher temperature (375 °F/190 °C) to fry the meat for a relatively shorter time (30 seconds) in the second round of deep frying. In this way, rest of the the water will evaporate from the potato starch coating, so that the out layer of the chicken pieces will be extra crunchy; and since the second frying time is so short that the inside part of the meat will remain juicy and tender. 

How to make Japanese Fried Chicken (Karaage)

Equipment

• Food Chopper (optional)

• Deep fryer pot

 

Ingredients:

• 4 to 5 chicken drumsticks (about 500g meat after deboned) (chicken thighs)
• ½ tbsp minced ginger
• 2 garlic cloves (minced)
• ¼ onion (minced)
• 3 tbsp cooking wine (or sake)

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• ½ tsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce

• ½ cup sweet potato starch (use the coarse/thick 粗 type, not the fine 细 type)

• 4 cup cooking oil (vegetable oil, peanut oil, canola oil, or corn oil)

Instructions:

1. Cut chicken drumsticks/thighs into large bite-size pieces, place into a ziplock bag. (Cut each chicken drumstick into 5 pieces, each chicken thigh into 6 pieces.)

2. Mince ginger, garlic, and onion with a food chopper (or chop finely with a knife), add into the ziplock bag.

3. Add cooking wine, sesame oil, light soy sauce, sugar, and salt into the ziplock bag. Seal the bag.

4. Gently massage through the ziplock bag to get the chicken meat thoroughly coated in the marinade. Keep in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

5. Add sweet potato starch to a shallow bowl/plate, dredge each piece of chicken in sweet potato starch, and pat lightly to remove the excess starch. Place coated chicken pieces on a plate.

6. Add cooking oil to a pot, heat up the oil with medium heat. Once it reaches 325°F (or 160°C), carefully place 5 pieces of chicken into the pot, so that it’s not overcrowding.

7. Deep fry for 3 minutes until the chicken crust turns lightly golden.

8. Transfer the chicken pieces to a drying rack, drain the excess oil and let them cool down for 4 minutes. (You can place a paper towel on a plate to substitute the drying rack.) Meanwhile continue to fry all the rest of the chicken pieces.

9. Once all the chicken pieces have been deep fried for one time, use high heat to heat up the oil to 375ºF (190ºC). Put the first batch of the chicken pieces back into the oil to deep fry for 1 minute. Transfer them to a drying rack to drain the excess oil. Continue to fry all the rest of the chicken pieces.

10. Squeeze fresh lemon juice over the chicken pieces, and serve with Kewpie mayonnaise on the side.