The Best Vegan Fried Chicken (Korean Style)

This looks like Korean fried chicken, but it actually isn't chicken at all. Get a close-up look at it. I mean, that looks like chicken to me, and I can tell you it tastes like Korean fried chicken too. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of My Kitchen Stories. If you're new to this channel, I'm Joanne Molinaro, a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author and recipe developer, and yes, I'm gonna say that every time because I earned it. Anyway, today we're going to be making Korean vegan fried chicken, and we're going to be using oyster mushrooms. This is my favorite product to use when I'm doing something like vegan fried chicken. I really think, as you can see, the flesh of the mushroom does a wonderful job of providing that similar chicken-like texture. What we're going to do is we're going to break them up into smaller chunks. Believe me, this will make your life easier. And now we're going to pull together some of the seasoning and spices, including MSG. Don't be afraid of MSG. To flavorize our mushrooms, we're also going to be using soju, which is a Korean rice spirit. It's kind of like sake, but not exactly sake. We're going to start by marinating our mushrooms with that soju, along with some onion powder, some garlic powder, some white pepper, as well as, of course, that MSG. If you guys don't have MSG, or you don't want to use MSG, you can use nutritional yeast as a substitute. I honestly think these flavors, especially the soju, is what makes this vegan fried chicken Korean vegan fried chicken, along with this soy sauce, of course, which is one of my favorite flavor agents. And we're just going to use our hands and mush everything together. We're going to stick this in the refrigerator. Don't judge my refrigerator. I'm going to do that for at least 30 minutes. I would do it for maybe even a couple hours if you can. Look, there's my chinois. I feel so fancy every time people see my chinois. And we're going to use some Korean tempura flour mix. If you do not have Korean tempura flour mix, you can find an alternative flour blend on my blog, along with the full written recipe. Why do we use Korean tempura flour mix? It's going to provide a crunchier and crispier texture than if you just use a regular flour blend. As you can see, though, we're also taking this opportunity to add more flavor to our flour blend with garlic powder, white pepper, black pepper, even a little bit of sugar. And this is just going to make sure that in addition to being extremely crunchy, our vegan fried chicken is also going to be absolutely outstandingly, outrageously flavorful. I don't know about you, but while I'm waiting for my oysters to marinate, I'm just going to tidy up because I hate, I hate having to clean up after finishing cooking. I'm going to create two bowls, one with the flour mixture we put together, and then I'm going to take a little bit of that flour mixture, and I'm going to mix that with a little bit of soju. And that's going to create my wet batter. So some people like to create Korean fried chicken just by dumping everything into one big bowl, adding the soju, and just coating all of their chicken pieces, or in this case, the oyster mushroom, with that wet batter. To me, that just creates tempura. I don't want mushroom tempura. I want Korean vegan fried chicken. So what we're going to do is we're going to create two bowls, one with the dry dredge, as well as one with a wet batter. Now we're going to get our oil very scorching hot, all the way up to a 375 degrees Fahrenheit. If you try frying the vegan fried chicken at a temperature lower than 375, you're going to get not as crunchy vegan fried chicken, and that won't be my fault. We're going to take that dredged piece of oyster mushroom, we're going to dip it in the wet batter, and then we're going to dredge it again in that flour mixture. Drop it in that scorching hot oil, and look at how beautiful and gorgeous they already look. And I'm going to tell you, the work that we did to create that flour blend, as well as the soju, they are going to create this unique flavor that you will not believe. Now we're going to double fry these, of course, because we want to maximize the crunch factor. Come on, come on baby. Almost there. There we are. So here's the science part of my kitchen stories video. The reason we double fry after the chicken or the mushrooms have come to a complete cool, is because that cooling time allows for further evaporation of any liquid, and thus it's extra super dry, which is what creates maximal crunch, as evidenced here. Now that we've finished frying our chicken, we're going to make two different sauces to go with our Korean vegan fried chicken. The first is a soy glaze that starts with a little bit of soy sauce and brown rice syrup. And no, that is not me making that noise. I hope you don't have the same problem. If you don't have brown rice syrup, you can use agave, you can use sugar, you can use maple syrup. We're also going to use a little bit of brown sugar, some garlic, some freshly grated ginger. And in order to ensure that this does turn into a proper glaze, we're going to add just a little bit of potato starch. If you don't have potato starch, you can definitely substitute with cornstarch, but it will be thicker and less like a glaze-like consistency. You're going to pour that into a small pot over low heat until it comes to a boil. Continue stirring until it thickens into a glaze. Then what I like to do is take one third of the vegan fried chicken, put it into a very deep bowl, put the glaze in the bowl, and then just toss everything around so that they get evenly coated. Okay, for our second sauce, I'm gonna heat things up a little bit because I know you guys like spicy. We're gonna add a little bit of gochujang. Okay, I know you guys are like totally cringing over my very old person jokes, but sorry, you're gonna have to deal with it if you want this recipe. We're gonna add a little bit of soy sauce, some brown sugar, a little bit of freshly grated ginger and garlic, and ketchup. Yes, I said it, ketchup. If you don't want to use ketchup, you can always use tomato paste. And then we're just gonna brush the sauce over our second third of our vegan fried chicken. What's going on with the last third? I'm just gonna leave them plain. I think that they taste best just plain like that, but I also wanted to add some variety. And I mean, look at that. Look at that. That is gorgeous. That is actually unbelievable. Like, even though I ate this and made this and, like, made this video, I'm still, like, in utter disbelief at how much, like, chicken that looks. You know what I really hate is when non-vegans are like, why do vegans want to eat things that taste like meat? And it's like, hello, you're drinking Diet Pepsi. Why do you want to drink something that tastes like Pepsi? I've honestly stopped thinking of food in terms of, well, does it taste like meat? Does it taste like cheese? And think more about, well, just does it taste good? And when I say something looks and tastes and feels like chicken like this clearly does, it's really more of a descriptor for people to understand what it actually tastes like. In Korea, people like to eat their fried chicken with beer. They have an entire phrase for it called chimaek, which is which means beer. Okay, so we have three different kinds. We have the soy glazed, gochujang glazed, and just plain. And you're supposed to drink it with beer. Uh, you know, you do like beer. She loves beer. Establish the baseline. All right, let me. This one looks good to me. Super flavorful. Oh, I can see why that would be a lot of people's favorite. What do you think? Was it as you expected? Really good. Okay, so here's what you're going to do. You're going to make this recipe and you're going to tell me which of the three is your favorite. Thanks so much for watching and follow for more delicious Korean vegan recipes.