Japanese fried chicken thigh fillets with a light ultra crisp coating, our home version of chicken karaage was served with shredded cabbage, mayo for dipping and rice on the side.
Cook’s notes
Most people think that karaage translates to fried chicken but that’s not really accurate. Karaage is a Japanese cooking method that involves dredging small pieces of uncooked food in starch and deep frying them until golden and crisp. In short, karaage can be fried seafood or vegetables too.
Chicken karaage is just fried chicken fillet. But there’s so-so chicken karaage, good chicken karaage and great chicken karaage. We double fry ours.
The first frying (left) cooks the chicken through; the second frying (right) creates the lovely crust.
We always use chicken thigh fillets for our karaage. It’s the default in Japan where breast meat is not as favored as it is in the West. Skin on thigh fillets are best but if the chicken is fatty enough (like what you see in the photo above), it’s alright if the fillets are skinless. What’s important is that the chicken has enough fat to help it stay moist during frying.
For the perfect karaage, cut the chicken fillets into uniform sizes so that they cook evenly.
Use potato starch for coating the chicken. It will give you the best results. If unavailable, you may use a combination of rice flour and cornstarch. Please do NOT use wheat-based flour.
The first frying (left) cooks the chicken through; the second frying (right) creates the lovely crust.
We always use chicken thigh fillets for our karaage. It’s the default in Japan where breast meat is not as favored as it is in the West. Skin on thigh fillets are best but if the chicken is fatty enough (like what you see in the photo above), it’s alright if the fillets are skinless. What’s important is that the chicken has enough fat to help it stay moist during frying.
For the perfect karaage, cut the chicken fillets into uniform sizes so that they cook evenly.
Use potato starch for coating the chicken. It will give you the best results. If unavailable, you may use a combination of rice flour and cornstarch. Please do NOT use wheat-based flour.Chicken karaage
Ingredients
- 500 grams chicken thigh fillets or 1.1 pounds (skin on is recommended)
- ¼ cup Japanese soy sauce
- ¼ cup mirin
- 1 teaspoon grated garlic
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- ¼ cup potato starch you may need more, or less, depending on the size of your chicken pieces
- peanut oil or other oil with a high smoking point for deep frying
Instructions
- Wipe the chicken thigh fillets dry with paper towels then cut into cubes. We like 2″x2″ cubes but you can make them slightly larger or smaller than that.
- Place the chicken cubes in a bowl, add the soy sauce, mirin, garlic and ginger, and mix well. Cover the bowl and marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- In a fryer, heat enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least three inches.
- Drain the chicken and dredge each piece in starch.
- Over medium heat (310F to 325F if you’re using a thermometer), fry the chicken cubes in batches. Three to four minutes per batch or just until the coating starts to turn crisp.
- Let the chicken rest on a rack as you fry the next batch, and so on.
- When all the chicken cubes have been fried, turn up the heat to high (that’s 350F to 375F with a thermometer).
- Fry the chicken cubes a second time, in batches, for another two minutes.
- Serve your chicken karaage immediately.
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