Karaage (Japanese Fried Chicken) - Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with karage that's right i'm going to show you how to make japanese style fried chicken which is not only one of the easiest fried chicken recipes to do it might also be the best fried chicken recipe or at the very least the best fried chicken that does not include bones and skin alright classic southern fried chicken should be in a category all by itself but as far as boneless skinless chicken goes it does not get any better than this so with that let's go ahead and get started with our marinade which we'll begin by grading one large garlic clove into this mixing bowl using our good old trusty microplane and by the way don't be a hero okay 97 of a garlic clove is plenty so don't grate a fingertip trying to get those last couple molecules and then besides the garlic we'll also want some freshly grated ginger root which we do want to peel first and the easiest way to do that is by scraping it with a spoon right not only is that faster than a peeler it also just removes the skin and you don't lose any of the root itself and once we have that peel we'll go ahead and grate in about two or three teaspoons or as much as you want all right everything in this marinade is to taste and can be adjusted and then what we'll do once at set besides pick up that little piece of skin is go ahead and pour in some soy sauce all right full strength no low sodium we need that sodium we will also add a little bit of sake which is japanese rice wine as well as some urine which is a sweet japanese rice wine which is primarily used for cooking only although if it's a liquid and it contains alcohol someone's drinking it and then we will also want a little bit of sesame oil right just a touch as well as some freshly ground black pepper a couple few shakes of cayenne a little bit of white sugar and last but not least a little bit of salt and we'll go ahead and give that a quick mix and all these ingredients should be available in any large grocery store but if you can't find mirin you can just use a little extra sake and another pinch of sugar and it will be fine and then once that's set we can move on to prepping our chicken thighs which since they're boneless and skinless simply means cutting them up and for smaller thighs like this i'm probably just going to cut that in half since i generally shoot for about two inch pieces and then for the larger thighs i like to cut those in three pieces and there's usually one side that's a little thinner and smaller than the other and i'm not sure if you can see it but there's almost like a natural seam there right that side of the thigh is not as thick so i like to make one cut right there at the thinnest point and then we will turn that thick side and cut that and have to make two more pieces so that is how i like to prep mine but as long as they're all about the same size you go ahead and cut these up any way you want and then what we'll do is go ahead and transfer that into our marinade and since i already have chicken on my hand i'll go ahead and use that to mix this up and as usual when we're working with chicken thighs we want to mix very very thoroughly all right chicken thighs are famous for their nooks and crannies so take your time and make sure everything's evenly coated and as we finish up i like to end up with the nook and cranny side down and that smoother side up since i just feel like they marinade better that way but i can't prove it it is just a feeling and then once that's set we'll want to pop this in the fridge for anywhere between an hour which is the minimum up to 10 hours which i think is the maximum all right some people say you can go longer but i don't believe them and what we can do while our chicken soaks is set up our dredging station and for that we should have some kind of baking rack set over a foil lined pan which is going to allow for some air to circulate underneath but if you don't have one just scrunch up some aluminum foil and then we will also need some starch to judge our chicken in and ideally that's going to be potato starch which looks and feels exactly like cornstarch and that's what you can use if you can't find it but you can and then what we'll do once our chickens marinated long enough is go ahead and pull that out and give it a mix and then we'll dredge two or three pieces at a time by tossing it in our starch and we will make sure those pieces are very generously coated all over and then we'll shake off the excess and transfer it onto our rack and by the way i've tested all the different starches for this technique but for me this pure potato starch definitely works out the best and by the way don't accidentally buy potato flour which is definitely not the same thing and what's going to happen almost immediately is that starch will start to hydrate as it absorbs that marinade and moisture from the chicken and your pieces will go from looking white and flowery to sort of something that looks tan and sticky which is exactly what we want to have happen and one thing i like to do once i have all those dredged is i like to give them a flip just in case thanks to gravity any excess moisture kind of dripped underneath i feel like by flipping them over that might even things out or on the other hand there's a chance i do that for nothing so suit yourself and by the way if you see any spots that are just really bright white and thick with starch you can go ahead and rub that off since if there's too much dry starch on these when you fry them after they're done they're going to have like white patches which i don't think is that attractive and then what we'll do before we fry these is pop them in the fridge uncovered for about 15 to 30 minutes to basically let that starch fully hydrate and dry out a little bit which is why i really want you to have these on a rack speaking of which we'll give that rack the old tapatapa to knock off any loose chunks before we pop it in the fridge and if everything goes according to plan about 20 minutes later or so they should look something like this and that's it these are now ready to fry which i'm going to do in some 350 degree oil for about three to four minutes depending on the size or until the insides cook through and the outside is crunchy and beautifully browned and if you're using a tiny fryer like i am do not crowd these since if you add too many they will stick together which reminds me after about 30 seconds we'll want to go ahead and take our spider which is what these strainers are called and we'll want to give these a little bit of a mix and a stir to make sure they're not sticking and like i said depending on the size we're going to cook these for about three to four minutes at which point they should look like some of the most beautiful fried chicken you've ever seen in your life and we'll remove those to a plate with a paper towel for a few seconds before we plate up and you might be thinking that coating looks crispy but is it really crispy well check it out oh yeah fork don't lie and that's it we'll go ahead and serve these up next to a little bit of optional fresh lemon and that my friends as i said earlier for chicken that does not contain skin or bones is probably the best fried chicken of all time and i'm not suggesting you do it but if you walked around randomly stopping japanese people on the street and asked them what their all-time favorite food is a very very large percentage would say chicken karagi except they'd probably pronounce it right i mean not only is the texture incredible with that super thin but still very crispy crust but thanks to what's basically a brining process in the marinade this chicken is so savory and so flavorful and so moist it almost defies description right even the thinnest of the thinnest pieces are still so juicy and by the way michelle prefers lemon which is why i'm serving it this way but you can also use lime if you want which is very nice so feel free to use that if you prefer i mean you are after all the stuff in clay of your chicken karage but either way a little bit of acidity is nice to cut through the richness but anyway to recap i could not have been happier with how this came out although i do want to quickly show you one more method since some folks think karage should always be fried twice and to do that we'll start off exactly like we did the last batch except instead of cooking it for three to four minutes we will only cook it like one and a half to two minutes and then pull it out and what we'll do is transfer it onto a rack to cool and then we'll fry it for a second time which is supposed to make it a lot crispier whoops these two are stuck there we go and above and beyond that possible advantage if you're doing this for a party or a large group the twice fried method makes a lot of sense since you can cook it halfway at this point and then you can do your final frying when you're ready to serve but no matter your reason once those pieces have cooled to room temp we'll go ahead and pop those back into 350 degree oil for about two minutes or so or until just like the first batch the insides cook through and the outside is crunchy and beautifully browned and if you do fry twice the outside is going to get a little darker and yes it's true a little bit crispier or maybe a lot crispier but the fact is whether it's a little more or a lot more the twice fried method definitely produces a crispier chicken and like i said if you're doing a party prepping these ahead with that first fry is definitely the way to go but if we're just gonna cook up a small batch and we're gonna eat right away i really honestly don't think you need to mess with that second fried since like i said and you heard that first batch was amazing but anyway that's it my take on chicken karage whether you fry it once or you fry it twice both ways are very nice which is why i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 433,523

Keywords: Karaage, Fried, Chicken, Japanese, recipe, crispy, easy, Asian, chef, john, food, wishes, cooking

Id: ElDAcsVTMaI

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 07 2022