Here's how to make chicken karaage, a delicious Japanese fried chicken.
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00:00Hi everybody, I'm Tim Anderson. I have a restaurant in Brixen called Nanban and I
00:05got a cookbook called Nanban as well. We do what's called Japanese soul food, so
00:11quite hearty, filling, kind of Japanese junk food type stuff that I absolutely
00:15love. And I'm gonna do a dish that is an absolute classic of Japanese soul food
00:20today. It's called chicken karaage, Japanese fried chicken, which is in my
00:24mind probably the best fried chicken recipe you can make. And it's super easy
00:28actually. So first we're gonna start with our marinade. So usually chicken karaage
00:35is a very simple marinade of sake, ginger and garlic and things like that. My
00:39marinade or my recipe is significantly more complicated and actually what I'm
00:43showing you here today is not the same karaage that we make in the in the
00:46restaurant. That is a top-secret recipe but this is pretty close and it's very
00:50very good. So we're gonna start with some shallots. Banana shallots I'm using, the
00:57nice big long ones, two of them, but you can use the little shallots as well, in
01:02which case you'd need four. So these just go into a blender or you can use a food
01:08processor or if you don't have these you can just very finely mince. Then I'm gonna
01:14add some garlic. This is 10 cloves just peeled in the blender as well. Then some
01:20fresh ginger, about 15-20 grams. It's been peeled and I do want to slice this fairly
01:26thinly before we blend it because one of my biggest pet peeves in cooking are the
01:30little fibers in ginger that don't break down very well in blenders or food
01:34process if you chuck it in whole. So you want to slice this across the grain first
01:37to break those down so you don't have that weird hairy texture. Once you do, that
01:42goes in the blender as well. So then we got seasonings. Lots and lots of seasonings.
01:46We're gonna do half a teaspoon of salt, quarter teaspoon-ish pepper. That's white pepper, which I
01:55really like in Japanese cooking but black pepper is fine. Then we got some hot
01:58chili sauce. Not too much. You don't want this to be spicy. Spicy. You just want it
02:03to have a little bit of heat. Then we've got some rice vinegar. Rice vinegar is one
02:08of my favorite seasonings. It's very very fresh and crisp. It's got a little bit of
02:12sweetness to it as well. It's a lovely vinegar. Then we've got some mirin. So
02:16mirin is a sweetened cooking sake. That's gonna add some lovely sweetness. Then
02:21we've got some actual sake as well which is of course Japanese rice wine. And
02:26that's got a lovely sort of savory quality to it like a fermented rice
02:30flavor. And we've got some sesame oil. Not too much because it's quite a strong
02:36flavor. That goes in as well. Then some soy sauce. Not too much because if you use
02:42a lot of soy sauce this marinade becomes very dark and then it tends to burn when
02:45you fry it. And finally we've got some fresh lime. So I'm gonna give them a little
02:49roll just to get the juices flowing. And I need about three tablespoons or so of
02:55this. I'm gonna save one half of these limes back for garnish and just squeeze
03:00the rest straight in there. If you can get yuzu juice, by the way, that is
03:06excellent. But it is very expensive. Limes are nearly as good but there's
03:10nothing quite like yuzu if you can get it. Alright then we blend.
03:15That's done. So now we're gonna prep our chicken. So one of the best things about
03:22chicken karaage is the size and shape of it. So that you get a lot. It's a great
03:27crunch to juicy chicken ratio. Instead of big chunks like big joints of chicken like
03:32you get an American fried chicken. You get little sort of nugget sized pieces. So
03:37that's what we're gonna do. And that's not just for flavor or texture. That's also
03:41because it helps them cook evenly and quickly. So you want to cut chicken thighs.
03:46And by the way, these are boneless but skin on chicken thighs. There's so much
03:50flavor in the skin. And thighs are great because they're very juicy. They're very,
03:56very flavorful. But they don't have a lot of weird sinews in them like a drumstick
04:00or a leg. So most chicken thighs you'll get about four pieces out of. If the thighs are
04:05bigger you get five. If they're smaller you'll just get three sometimes. Alright
04:11so that's our chicken prepped up. Back in the bowl. And then we add the marinade. Mmm.
04:19Lovely. Which has so much flavor in it. Make sure everything's really nice and
04:24evenly coated. And then this will marinate for at least an hour. Actually you could
04:29fry it just like this and it'd be pretty tasty. But the longer it marinades the more
04:32flavor you'll get. So this will go into the fridge. We'll come back later.
04:36So we've got the chicken in its lovely marinade just chilling out in the fridge.
04:40And most karaage at this point you would just flour and deep fry. Usually karaage uses what's
04:46called katakuriko which is kind of like a potato starch. It's very, very light and very crispy.
04:50But I actually use corn flour for my karaage which is even more crispy. It's sort of halfway
04:56between a flour and a potato starch texture. So we're going to start with that. The other
04:59thing I'm doing that's slightly non-traditional for my karaage is making a seasoned flour like
05:04you'd get from American fried chicken. Because I really like to pack as much flavor into this
05:08dish as possible. So we'll start with corn flour. We're going to add to that a little bit
05:12of salt. A little bit of white pepper. Black pepper is fine as well. White and black sesame
05:23seeds. Or just white or just black. It's all good. We've got some chili powder. Just a tiny
05:29bit. Some dried ginger. And then finally this is dashi powder. So dashi is of course a Japanese
05:40stock made from smoked fish and kombu. Seaweed. It's a really, really lovely flavor. Really,
05:46really satisfying and smoky and fishy and fragrant. And this is essentially the stock cubed version.
05:51Which makes a decent dashi actually. But what I like to use it for is seasoning other things.
05:55You put some of this in your stir fries or your fried rice. Or like I'm doing now, your
05:58seasoned karaage flour. And it just sort of lifts the whole thing. It's got a great sort
06:03of satisfying mouth filling flavor. So we'll stir that all together. Nice and well mixed.
06:10There we go. And now we're ready to deep fry. Okay, so we've got our seasoned flour ready
06:16to go. And our oil is up to temperature. So it's time for me to fry. Temperature is important
06:21with this dish because you really don't want this to burn. It'll taste really nasty. And
06:25obviously you don't want undercooked chicken. Nobody likes that. Not safe. Not delicious.
06:30So 160. That's the temperature we're going for. For this size of chicken pieces. That'll
06:35get a great golden brown crust at the same time that it cooks through. It stays really juicy.
06:40So 160. And by the way, every time you deep fry, you want to use a nice big pan where the sides
06:46come up very high above the level of the oil. So that if this does bubble up, it doesn't
06:51bubble up too much and overflow. Alright, so we're going to take our marinated chicken.
06:56Just let that marinate drip off a bit. Throw a few pieces at a time into that seasoned flour.
07:01And you're going to want to fry this in batches, by the way. Don't try to do all of it at once.
07:06Because you will crowd the pan. That'll do two things. One, the chicken will stick together.
07:12And it won't cook nicely. And also the steam that generates from the chicken, as the moisture
07:18inside evaporates away into the oil, will actually start to steam the outside of the chicken
07:22as well. So you'll end up with sort of soft, sad chicken pieces instead of nice crispy bits.
07:28Alright, so make sure that these are really well coated as well. The more coating you have,
07:32the crispier, crunchier they'll be. And also you want to protect that marinade from the hot
07:37oil because it does have sugar in it. It does have soy sauce and it'll burn if it touches
07:42the hot oil too much or is in contact for too long. Alright, so we're going to layer that
07:48into the oil. Lovely sizzle.
07:54Shake off as much flour as you can as well. And you're going to want to fry these for about
07:59six minutes or so. If you have a probe thermometer, a meat thermometer at home, it's a good idea to
08:05use this because you don't really know what's going on inside the chicken until you check
08:09it. And you can either do that by cutting into it or by probing it. It's the easiest way.
08:17There it is. Beautiful, golden, juicy, crunchy chicken karaage. And this will stay crispy for
08:24ages as well. So don't worry about doing it in batches. You can take your time with it. The main
08:29thing is just don't overcrowd that pan. You can just serve it as is. But, you know, when
08:35you bring it to the table, it's pub food again. So you don't have to be fancy with it. Sometimes
08:42people serve this with a dip like mayonnaise or ponzu sauce, something like that. But to
08:48me, this chicken is just so crunchy and flavorful and juicy as it is. I don't really think it needs
08:55anything except for maybe some fresh lime. And that's it. That's chicken karaage. That is
09:01Japanese fried chicken. Maybe the best fried chicken.