Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken ♥ Air Fryer Recipe

Hey guys, it's Angel. Today we're going to be making Taiwanese popcorn chicken which is a popular night market snack. We call it Yen Su Ji. It's super delicious. I really like it with bubble tea but they're really addicting. Now if you haven't had it before, it's literally bite-sized pieces of chicken marinated then coated in a flour and deep fried until it's crispy on the outside and super tender and juicy on the inside. But as you know, deep frying at home is kind of a pain. I don't like doing it as much because you have so much oil leftover that you never know what to do with. So today I'm going to show you how to make a healthy version of Taiwanese popcorn chicken in my new Comfy air fryer. But first, a big thank you to Comfy for sponsoring today's video. With Comfy in today's recipe, I'm using Comfy's 5.8 quart digital air fryer which includes neat features like roast, dehydrate, and toast. It also has a non-stick inner basket which makes cleanup a breeze. Plus it's got the shake feature which means it will remind you to shake your food halfway through. And who doesn't like a shake feature? So if you're interested in making popcorn chicken at home and you don't have an air fryer already, check out Comfy's digital air fryer on Amazon. I'll leave a link in the video description below. And because it's the holidays and I'm feeling kind festive, we're going to be doing an air fryer giveaway at the end of this video. So if you're interested in that, stay tuned. We're going to be doing that after the taste test. So with that, let's get started, shall we? Now for the ingredients. For this recipe, we'll need three quarter pounds of chicken thighs, some fresh Thai basil leaves, and how many leaves? That's really up to you. We'll also need two to three cloves of minced garlic, one teaspoon of grated ginger, a quarter teaspoon each of five spice powder and white pepper, one tablespoon of soy sauce, half a tablespoon of rice wine, and half a tablespoon of sugar. Start by cutting the chicken thighs into small bite-sized pieces. I recommend about an inch and a half each. Then place the pieces in a bowl for marinating. To that, we'll add the ginger and garlic, sugar, soy sauce, rice wine, and finally the five spice powder and white pepper. Give that a thorough mix and set aside for at least 30 minutes, or you can let it marinate overnight. Now let's prepare the basil. Wash the leaves and dry them thoroughly before using. I usually pat them dry with a towel before removing the individual leaves from the stem. Now we're ready to cook. So while the chicken is marinating, let's go ahead and air fry the basil. I've got my avocado spray, which is the secret to this. You can also use any other high heat oil spray, but I'm using avocado spray today, which has a high heat smoke point of 500 degrees. I'm also using a sheet pan, which I'm going to line with aluminum foil. Oh wait, I ran out. Hang on. I gotta go get another box. Now while you're doing this, it does not have to be perfect. You can leave the edges of the aluminum foil up, so that way it can act as oil overspray protection. Now I'm just going to make a thin coating of oil. Then I'm going to add the basil leaves that we washed and dried earlier. And as best as you can, lay them flat right on the aluminum foil. And it's totally okay if they curl back up. That's fine. Now for the air fryer, we're going to preheat this on 400 degrees for three minutes. So I'm going to go ahead and press the start button. Air fry. It already sets to 400, which is perfect. And then press start. While that's preheating, I'm going to go ahead and spray another coat on top of the basil leaves. So we're coating both top and bottom. Just a light coat for now. And that looks perfect. As you can see, this is really fun. I love making popcorn chicken. And while we're waiting for the oven to preheat, off to the side, I have a bowl of white pepper and salt. And that's going to be the seasoning for when we toss everything together. All right, the air fryer is preheated. It took about two minutes. So I'm just going to use some tongs and put those basil leaves directly in the air fryer. I can hear it sizzle already. And right now, I just did half the batch. And I went ahead to set a timer for one minute and 10 seconds. This is a nice green color. I found that at 400 degrees, you don't want to go more than a minute and 10 seconds. It'll just burn things and the leaves will curl up. And that's the basil. So let's go ahead and prepare the chicken. I'm taking one whole egg and adding it directly into the bowl. Give that a good mix with your chopsticks. Then off to the side, prepare a separate dish of sweet potato flour. We're going to be using the flour for the coating. And if you guys look closely, the sweet potato flour has a bit of texture to it, which I think adds to the taste. Go ahead to roll each piece of chicken in the sweet potato flour, making sure to press the flour onto the chicken to give it a good coating. And here, I recommend doing these in small batches. That way, everything just stays more crispy. So again, put the chicken on the aluminum foil, get the avocado spray out, and give it one more coat on the top. Then put the chicken in your preheated air fryer. Same temperature, 400 degrees, but we're going to do this for about 8 to 12 minutes. And halfway through, we're going to want to check on the chicken and shake. And here's a little trick that I like to do to make the chicken extra crispy, is halfway through, while we're shaking it, if I feel like it needs a little bit extra oil, I'll go ahead and just spray directly into the basket. So the chicken is almost ready, guys. I'm super excited. Oh yes, it's sizzling. Can you hear that? Okay, so once your chicken is done, go ahead and take it, put it on a plate. Wow, that looks so good, guys. Now I'm just going to coat and prepare the other half of the chicken, and we'll be ready to serve. Once that's done, sprinkle some of the salt and pepper mixture onto the basil leaves and the chicken. I like to do a generous amount of seasoning on the chicken and toss it together in a bowl. For the finishing touch, I'm adding a couple shakes of Japanese ichimi togarashi, or crushed red pepper, which will give the popcorn chicken a little extra spice. And now we're done. And that, guys, is how you make Taiwanese popcorn chicken, or yansuji. My kitchen smells amazing. There's all the aroma of the five-spice powder, and I put the chicken and the basil into a Kraft sandwich bag. This is what makes it super authentic, because this is literally, when you go to Taiwan, they'll give you like a little bag with your popcorn chicken in it, and a stick. So you just kind of walk around and eat it like this. So let's do the taste test, shall we? Wow, that was really good. So what I like about this is that it was still kind of crispy, but it wasn't too greasy. Normally, when you think of deep-fried foods, the grease is just overwhelming. This was not like that. Honestly, I tasted more of the flavors of the five-spice, the soy, and then obviously that white pepper and salt mixture. I really could use a bubble tea after this, but super delicious. So if you guys want to make Taiwanese popcorn chicken at home, I highly recommend you check out Konfi's digital air fryer. And now for the air fryer giveaway. In this video, I'm going to be giving away a Konfi digital air fryer, just like this one. If you guys want to enter this giveaway, follow me on social media at Angel Cooks Food, either Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Tag two of your friends and let me know what you want to cook in this air fryer. Or you can check out my video description below for more details on how you can enter. I'm Angel. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you enjoyed today's video, don't forget to give me a thumbs up. And if you want to see more Taiwanese night market snacks, post in the comments below and let me know what night market snacks you'd like to eat. Who knows? Maybe I'll fly to Taiwan right now. I hear it's a good time of the year to be in Taiwan. Anyways, take care guys. I love you. Happy holidays. And I will see you in the next video. Bye for now.