Chicken Karaage has been a family favorite since….I made some for Chinese New Year this year. It’s actually very simple to make. For the price you pay in any Japanese restaurant, I think you should be getting a whole basket full of chicken karaage nibbles but instead you get a plateful of 8 dainty piece (9 if you’re lucky).
I have a recipe of karaage chicken that will stay succulent for the longest time without going dry. I mean, I am sure most of you know how KFC turns out when you leave out it there overnight or reheat it – it becomes dry and stringy. Well, not with this chicken! And the reason is there is a special ingredient in there that makes the chicken karaage moist and juicy inside… I discovered it purely by accident – well, last minute food fusion that went REALLY well. For some reason, i was making karaage this one time and i added yoghurt into it thinking that i was making chicken curry instead! My mind was some place else but the results were excellent in the end 
Anyway, here’s the recipe:-
500g chicken fillet (cut them into two equal pieces or if you like them in bigger pieces, leave them as it is) OR use chicken thigh if you want them to be juicier, just cut them into mouth popping pieces.
2 inch knob of ginger, grated and juice squeezed out
1 teaspoon garlic paste or 2 cloves of finely minced garlic
6 tablespoon of soysauce
3 tablepoon sugar
1 tablespoon chinese cooking wine or sake
2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar (or any other clear vinegar)
1/4 cup of plain yoghurt
1 cup or more corn flour for dredging or coating the chicken pieces.
Enough oil to fill up your pan up to an inch of oil – use a smaller pan.
Method:
1. Marinate your chicken pieces with ginger juice. Make sure you squeeze the grated ginger as much as possible. You want to get every bit of the juice out.
2. Add the soysauce, sugar, vinegar, garlic, wine/sake and yoghurt in. Mix well and let it marinate in the fridge for no more than 1 hour because the salt in soy sauce will toughen the chicken pieces.
3. After that, heat your oil on medium heat till it sizzles when u put in a pinch of cornflour. That’s when you can start frying your chicken karaage.
4. Coat your chicken pieces with corn flour and put it in the oil. Don’t put all of them at once – put in maybe 1/4 of your chicken pieces at a time..depending on how big your pan is. Overcrowding will cause chicken to stick and turn out unsightfully ugly although edible. Each batch should take about between 5-10 minutes to cook depending on the size of your chicken pieces.
5. Once the chicken pieces are golden brown, take them out and lay them on paper towels to soak up the excess oil. And below is how the finished product should look like 
It’s incredible with a bit of mayo and lemon juice squeezed on top. I personally like it just the way they are without any sauce…;)
I really didn’t think it would be appetizing to post pictures of the chicken pieces uncooked. They look unpretty and quite grotesque actually, much less appetizing. Oh well, this is a no fail recipe and what i mean by no fail is,besides that its easy, even after you leave the chicken piece out for a while in the open, they will still remain juicy and incredibly succulent. How about that?
P.S. It’s the yoghurt *nods* and incredibly, you won’t even know it’s there with that first bite!
OMG that looks nice. I’ve been planning to make Karaage Chicken for a while, so have to give your recipie a go. I’ll let you know how it compares to the real thing!
And yes, using chicken thigh does taste a lot better than using chicket breast.
You can also get ‘proper’ Japanese karaage coating from the international section of your supermarket. I’m yet to notice that much of a distinction between it and regular flour. I’ll have a closer look at the ingredients next time.
Hmm..those flour are probably seasoned so you just need to coat the chicken with it without prior marination.
Well, I guess you could give both a try and let me know what you think.