Recipe of Karaage (Halal version, of course)

Fried Chicken? No! It’s Karaage!

Writer: Rahmania Radjadi (www.rahmaniaradjadi.com)

karaage plate — I like to add ketchup on mine.

This recipe is one of those easy recipe that I often make at home. I could say that this recipe has included in my “lazy day” cooking list.

The title described exactly my experience with one of my husband’s Japanese friend. We were at a meet up in Kanda during the summer festival to see an event in Kanda shrine. There were so many food stalls there and I saw one of the food stall selling chicken based food. When I saw a “fried chicken”look a like meal, I asked my husband’s friend if it just same as fried chickens and his reaction was unexpected. He was like “Nooo! It’s karaage, different with fried chicken!” and I was smiling and said “oh okay!” thinking did I asked it wrong?

Karaage (唐揚げ) is a home cook meal in Japan, I believe every Japanese household have cooked tori karaage in their kitchen. So, what makes karaage different with a normal fried chicken? It’s in the batter. While fried chicken uses flour for the batter, karaage uses potato starch.

The story of karaage lies in the Edo period of Japan’s history. Chinese food was becoming popular at the time in Japan, there was a chinese style vegetarian meal (fucharyouri) that inspired the making of karaage.

This recipe is for 4 servings.

Ingredients

500 gr of boneless and skinless chickens (I usually use chicken breast and chicken thighs)
4 garlic cloves
2 table spoon of grated ginger
4 table spoons of soy sauce
2 table spoon of apple juice (as sake substitute)
salt
potato starch
flour
white pepper
cooking oil
lemon

Cooking instructions

Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and put all of it in a bowl
Grate the garlic into a paste
Add the grated garlic, grated ginger, apple juice, a pinch of salt, and enough amount of soy sauce to the chicken. Mix it well and marinate it for minimum of 30 minutes on the fridge
Get a bowl then add a cup of potato starch and a cup of flour, mo matter how much you take of each one, it should be 1:1 in ratio and mix it well (or you can use all potato starch without flour at all). After that add a pinch of white pepper
After finished marinated, roll the chicken one by one in the flour and starch mixed until all coated
Heat about 3-4 cup of cooking oil
Fry the chickens until golden and crisp up nicely
You karaage is ready to serve!

You also have option to use only potato starch with no flour at all. It’s up to you, both result are good and delicious. A serving tips for you, add some lettuce and a cut of lemon in the serving plate to make it beautiful. You should try this recipe and I hope you enjoy it!