Today it’s a Japanese recipe [1] again. A recipe that we could say that is the Japanese version of chicken nuggets. And as always, it is simple and easy but delicious. Just let a few bite size pieces of chicken to marinate in soy sauce, sake, garlic and ginger, then bread them and deep fry them. So good ! This recipe is fairly widespread in Japan, at home and even in festival. It has its own association, the karaage association [2]. It is quite common to put some nuggets in the bento, the Japanese luch box, since even cold they still yum, yum.
I discovered the tori no kara-age during a course of sushi for dummies [3], given by Gastromaniac [4]. That day we made karaage maki, the sushi rolls, and it was surprisingly good. Moreover, as it can be eaten cold too, I have tried to put tori no karaage diced in my salad dressed with a soy sauce vinaigrette.
Japanese Style Deep-Fried Chicken Nuggets Recipe (tori no kara-age – 鶏の唐揚げ)
Ingredientes
- 500 g boneless chicken thighs, with the skin, cut into bite size pieces
- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sake
- 25 g ginger, peeled
- 2 cloves garlic , peeled
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 egg
- 50 g of potato starch
- Sunflower oil for deep frying
- Salt and pepper
Elaboración
- In a bowl, salt and pepper the chicken pieces.
- Crush the garlic and ginger in a mortar, or use a ceramic ginger grater.
- Prepare the marinade in a small bowl: mix it in soy sauce, sake, grated ginger and grated garlic, sugar and sesame oil.
- Add in the chicken into the marinade, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge for at least half an hour.
- Heat oil in a deep fryer or skillet to reach 150-160ºC
- While the oil is warming up, pour over the chicken pieces the beaten egg and mix well.
- Flour the chicken pieces in the potato starch.
- Fry the chicken pieces a couple of minutes per side, in batches, depending on the size of your skillet or fryer.
- Drain and reserve the chicken pieces.
- Bring the oil to 180°C.
- Deep fry the chicken again, for a minute or two , until browned to your liking.
- Let stand a few minutes on paper towels to remove excess oil .
- Done. You can serve it with lettuce leaves, mayonnaise [5] and/or a slice of lemon.
Sugerencias, trucos y consejos
- You can skip the double frying and fry in oil at 170°C until gold and brown. But the double frying prevents the chicken from remaining raw inside.
- It is not usual to make this recipe with chicken breasts, but you can try if you like.
- You can also eat tori no karaage when is cold, or use it to prepare some maki and even a salad, with some lettuce leaves and soy sauce vinaigrette.
- The sugar is not essential, but intensifies the flavor of the marinade.
- You can substitute potato starch by cornstarch. The result will be almost the same.
Source: Cooking with the Dog [8]