Japanese Fried Chicken (karaage) Recipe
This recipe teaches us how to make restaurant-quality Japanese Fried Chicken (karaage 唐揚げ) at home. The karaage chicken meat is juicy, tender, and flavorful, after marinated with ginger, onion, garlic, soy sauce, cooking wine, and sugar for 1 hour. And the crust is extra crispy after the double frying technique.
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)
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 3 tbsp cooking wine (or sake)
- ½ tsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- ½ cup sweet potato starch
- 4 cup cooking oil (vegetable oil, peanut oil, canola oil, or corn oil)
Instructions
- Cut chicken drumsticks/thighs into large bite-size pieces, place into a ziplock bag. (Cut each chicken drumstick into 5 pieces, cut each chicken thigh into 6 pieces.)
- Mince ginger, garlic, and onion with a food chopper (or chop finely with a knife), add into the ziplock bag.
- Add cooking wine, sesame oil, light soy sauce, sugar, and salt into the ziplock bag. Seal the bag.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Deep fry for 3 minutes until the chicken crust turns lightly golden.
- 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.
- 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.
- Squeeze fresh lemon juice over the chicken pieces, and serve with Kewpie mayonnaise on the side.