An (on-going?) experiment of Japanese-style fried chicken.

The recipe

Ingredients

1. Chiken thigh (boneless): 2 lb
2. Ginger: half of palm
3. Garlic clove: 6
4. Salt: Dependents on mood
5. Pepper: Dependents on mood
6. Shichimi togarashi (optional): 1 bottle/18 g
7. Soy sauce: Dependents on mood
8. Cooking rice wine: Dependents on mood
9. Egg: 4
10. Starch: depends on working condition
11. Flour: depends on working condition
12. Oil: depends on working condition

Steps

1. Cut the chiken thigh to bite size.
2. Make the marinade sauce: Grind the garlic clove and ginger, and mix with salt, pepper, soy sauce, cooking rice wine. I also added shichimi togarashi (s.t.).
3. Marinate chicken in the sauce for 5 min.
4. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs.
5. Meanwhile, prepare the mixture of starch and flour with a ratio of 1:1.
6. Remove the marinade sauce on the chicken dice.
7. Roll the chicken dice in the powder mixture after dipping in the whisked egg.
8. Fry by repeating the following for 2-3 times: (1) Fry for 90 sec in 160-180C oil; (2) Stand for 60 sec while draining oil; (3) Break the crispy surface and fry again. At the last time, fry for 30 sec in 200C oil.

Notes:

1. Do not fry too many chicken dices in one batch, so as to avoid the sudden drop in oil temperature.
2. The time for frying depends on the size of chicken. In practice, what I did was to (1) fry one batch until the surface of the chicken dice just turns light yellow over a time period of 60-90 sec; (2) let the batch stand for some time until another batch is finished; (3) fry the first batch again until the color is deeper or becomes golden.
3. The key is to control the oil temperature. Do not let the surface color change too quickly - that means the temperature is too high.
4. Remove solid wastes in the oil between batches.

References:

1. Recipe 1
2. Recipe 2
3. Recipe 3