Here's how to make chicken karaage, a delicious Japanese fried chicken.
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00:00Hi everybody, I'm Tim Anderson. I have a restaurant in Brixen called Nanban and I
00:05got a cookbook called Nanban as well. We do what's called Japanese soul food, so
00:11quite hearty filling kind of Japanese junk food type stuff that I absolutely
00:15love. And I'm gonna do a dish that is an absolute classic of Japanese soul food
00:20today. It's called chicken karaage, Japanese fried chicken, which is in my
00:24mind probably the best fried chicken recipe you can make and it's super easy
00:28actually. So first we're gonna start with our marinade. So usually chicken karaage
00:35is a very simple marinade of sake, ginger and garlic and things like that. My
00:39marinade or my recipe is significantly more complicated and actually what I'm
00:43showing you here today is not the same karaage that we make in the in the
00:46restaurant. That is a top-secret recipe but this is pretty close and it's very
00:50very good. So we're gonna start with some shallots. Banana shallots I'm using, the
00:57nice big long ones, two of them, but you can use the little shallots as well in
01:02which case you'd need four. So these just go into a blender or you can use a food
01:08processor or if you don't have these you can just very finely mince. Then I'm gonna
01:14add some garlic. This is 10 cloves just peeled in the blender as well. Then some
01:20fresh ginger about 15-20 grams. It's been peeled and I do want to slice this fairly
01:26thinly before we blend it because one of my biggest pet peeves in cooking are the
01:30little fibers in ginger that don't break down very well in blenders or food
01:34process if you chuck it in whole. So you want to slice this across the grain first
01:37to break those down so you don't have that weird hairy texture. Once you do, that
01:42goes in the blender as well. So then we got seasonings. Lots and lots of seasonings.
01:46We're gonna do half a teaspoon of salt. Quarter teaspoon-ish pepper. That's white pepper, which I
01:55really like in Japanese cooking but black pepper is fine. Then we got some hot
01:58chili sauce. Not too much. You don't want this to be spicy. Spicy. You just want it
02:03to have a little bit of heat. Then we've got some rice vinegar. Rice vinegar is one
02:08of my favorite seasonings. It's very very fresh and crisp. It's got a little bit of
02:12sweetness to it as well. It's a lovely vinegar. Then we've got some mirin. So
02:16mirin is a sweetened cooking sake. That's gonna add some lovely sweetness. Then
02:21we've got some actual sake as well which is of course Japanese rice wine. And
02:26that's got a lovely sort of savory quality to it like a fermented rice
02:30flavor. And we've got some sesame oil. Not too much because it's quite a strong
02:36flavor. That goes in as well. Then some soy sauce. Not too much because if you use
02:42a lot of soy sauce this marinade becomes very dark and then it tends to burn when
02:45you fry it. And finally we've got some fresh lime. So gonna give them a little roll
02:49just to get the juices flowing. And I need about three tablespoons or so of this.
02:55I'm gonna save one half of these limes back for garnish and just squeeze the rest
03:01straight in there. If you can get yuzu juice by the way that is excellent but it
03:07is very expensive. Limes are nearly as good but there's nothing quite like yuzu if
03:12you can get it. All right then we blend.
03:15That's done so now we're gonna prep our chicken. So one of the best things about chicken karaage
03:23is the size and shape of it. So that you get a lot. It's a great crunch to juicy chicken
03:29ratio. Instead of big chunks like big joints of chicken like you get an American fried chicken.
03:34You get little sort of nugget sized pieces. So that's what we're gonna do. And that's not
03:39just for flavor or texture. That's also because it helps them cook evenly and quickly.
03:44So you want to cut chicken thighs. And by the way these are boneless but skin on chicken thighs.
03:49There's so much flavor in the in the skin. And thighs are great because they're very
03:54they're very juicy. They're very very flavorful. But they don't have a lot of
03:58weird sinews in them like a drumstick or a leg. So most chicken thighs you'll get about
04:03four pieces out of. If the thighs are bigger you get five. If they're smaller you'll just
04:09get three sometimes. All right so that's our chicken prepped up. Back in the bowl.
04:13And then we add the marinade. Mmm. Lovely. Which has so much flavor in it. Make sure everything's
04:24really nice and evenly coated. And then this will marinate for at least an hour. Actually you
04:29could fry it just like this and it'd be pretty tasty. But the longer it marinades the more flavor
04:32you'll get. So let's go into the fridge. We'll come back later. So we've got the
04:37chicken in its lovely marinade just chilling out in the fridge. And most
04:41karaage at this point you would just flour and deep fry. Usually karaage uses
04:46what's called katakuriko which is kind of like a potato starch. It's very very
04:49light and very crispy. But I actually use corn flour for my karaage which is even
04:54more crispy. It's it's sort of halfway between a flour and a potato starch texture.
04:58So we're gonna start with that. The other thing I'm doing that's slightly
05:00non-traditional for my karaage is making a seasoned flour like you get from
05:05American fried chicken. Because I really like to pack as much flavor into this
05:08dish as possible. So we'll start with corn flour. We're gonna add to that a little
05:12bit of salt. A little bit of white pepper. Black pepper is fine as well. White and
05:22black sesame seeds. Or just white or just black. It's all good. We've got some chili
05:28powder. Just a tiny bit. Some dried ginger. And then finally this is dashi powder. So
05:38dashi is of course a Japanese stock made from smoked fish and kombu, seaweed. It's a
05:45really really lovely flavor. Really really satisfying and smoky and fishy and
05:48fragrant. And this is essentially the stock cubed version which makes a decent
05:52dashi actually. But what I like to use it for is seasoning other things. You put some of
05:55this in your stir fries, your fried rice, or like I'm doing now, your seasoned karaage
05:59flour. And it just sort of lifts the whole thing. It's got a great sort of
06:03satisfying mouth-filling flavor. So we'll stir that all together. Nice and well mixed.
06:09There we go. And now we're ready to deep fry. Okay so we've got our seasoned
06:15flour ready to go. And our oil is up to temperature. So it's time for me to fry.
06:20Temperature is important with this dish because you really don't want this to burn.
06:23It'll taste really nasty. And obviously you don't want undercooked chicken. Nobody
06:27likes that. Not safe. Not delicious. So 160. That's the temperature we're going for.
06:32For this size of chicken pieces. That'll get a great golden brown crust at the same
06:37time that it cooks through and stays really juicy. So 160. And by the way every
06:42time you deep fry you want to use a nice big pan where the sides come up very
06:46high above the level of the oil. So that if this does bubble up it doesn't bubble up
06:51too much and overflow. Alright so we're going to take our marinated chicken. Just
06:56let that marinate drip off a bit. Throw a few pieces at a time into that seasoned
07:01flour. And you're going to want to fry this in batches by the way. Don't try to do
07:04all of it at once. Because you will crowd the pan. That'll do two things. One the
07:10chicken will stick together. It won't cook nicely. And also the steam that
07:15generates from the chicken as the moisture inside evaporates away into the oil will
07:20actually start to steam the outside of the chicken as well. So you'll end up
07:23with sort of soft sad chicken pieces instead of nice crispy bits. Alright so
07:28make sure that these are really well coated as well. The more coating you have
07:32the crispier crunchier they'll be. And also you want to protect that marinade from
07:36the hot oil. Because it does have sugar in it. It does have soy sauce and it'll burn if it
07:42touches the hot oil too much or is in contact for too long. Alright so we're
07:46going to layer that into the oil. Lovely sizzle. Shake off as much flour as you can
07:55as well. And you're going to want to fry these for about six minutes or so. If you
08:01have a probe thermometer, a meat thermometer at home, it's a good idea to use this
08:05because you don't really know what's going on inside the chicken until you check
08:09it. And you can either do that by cutting into it or by probing it. It's the easiest
08:14way. There it is. Beautiful, golden, juicy, crunchy chicken karaage. And this will stay
08:23crispy for ages as well. So don't worry about doing it in batches. You can take
08:28your time with it. The main thing is just don't overcrowd that pan. You can just serve
08:33it as is. But you know, when you bring it to the table, it's pub food again. So you don't
08:41have to be fancy with it. Sometimes people serve this with a dip like a mayonnaise or ponzu
08:47sauce, something like that. But to me, this chicken is just so crunchy and flavorful and
08:52juicy as it is. I don't really think it needs anything except for maybe some fresh lime. And
08:58that's it. That's chicken karaage. That is Japanese fried chicken, maybe the best fried chicken.