Chicken Karaage Recipe 2.0 (Ultimate Japanese Fried Chicken)

Hi everyone, I'm Yuto and today on Stachy I'm going to show you how to make the most delicious and crispy Japanese chicken karaage ever. Let's get started. I'm going to start by placing about 350 grams of skin on chicken thigh in a sealable bag. I tenderize the chicken by stabbing it with a fork all over before cutting into bite-sized pieces. This will make it softer and absorb more flavour. Add half teaspoon of salt and massage until all the pieces are evenly covered. Next, we're gonna flavour the chicken so add one and a half tablespoon of grated ginger, a tablespoon of grated garlic, half a tablespoon of grated apple, one tablespoon of sake, a teaspoon of Japanese mayonnaise, one teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, a teaspoon of shirodashi or if you don't have it you can use light soy sauce, half a teaspoon of Chinese chicken bouillon powder and a sprinkle of white pepper powder. If you don't want to touch chicken you can massage everything together by scrunching the bag but I find it's quicker and more thorough to get stuck in and mix it by hand. Okay, once it looks evenly covered add one tablespoon of all-purpose flour and one tablespoon of tapioca starch. Massage it once more until all the pieces are evenly covered then push the air out of the bag, seal it up and marinate it in the fridge for about 30 minutes. I recommend leaving it for an hour if you have time. So once it's finished marinating start heating your oil to 160 degrees Celsius that's about 320 degrees Fahrenheit. While we wait for the oil to heat up take a container and add four tablespoons of potato starch and two teaspoons of water. Use chopsticks or a fork to spread the moisture around, this will help the starch clump up a little. The goal here is to make small balls of starch for something I like to call the hailstone effect. These little hailstones will be used to coat the chicken and make it extra crispy. I also like to use my hand to squeeze it a bit for a few bigger hailstones here and there. When that's done coat each piece of the marinated chicken generously with the hailstone starch. Make sure the chicken isn't too wet before you do this, shake off the marinade before rolling it into the starch. The hailstone effect is optional, you can just use the starch as it is if you prefer but I seriously recommend it if you like me and prefer your karaage extra crispy. Okay let's place them in the oil, we will be frying these in multiple batches to prevent the oil temperature from dropping too much. Fry them for about three minutes or until lightly browned, don't worry about them being cooked all the way through because we're going to double fry them. After three minutes let them rest on wire rack while you cook the next batch, this will allow them to continue cooking in the residual heat. This Japanese style frying pot is great because it drains the oil back into the pot. Once you've cooked all the chicken increase the oil temperature to somewhere between 180 to 190 degrees celsius or about 360 fahrenheit and fry them again for about one minute or until a deep golden brown. I find double frying prevents both undercooking and overcooking and it makes the exterior extra crispy which is my main goal with this recipe. Once they're done drain on a wire rack once more and that's it, the ultimate crispy and flavorful Japanese karaage chicken. I hope you enjoyed that one, if you want to learn more about karaage including other marinade options, flour starch choices and other tips check out the blog post, the link is on the screen now. I hope to see you next time, thanks for watching, have a great day.