【Taking on Non-Fried Chicken Karaage! Behind the Scenes of Recipe Creation】Cooking Anecdotes

In today's YouTube video,
I introduced non-fried chicken karaage.

I've received many requests to
introduce non-fried karaage
for a long time now,
but there was a reason I couldn't easily introduce it.

Since so many people love chicken karaage,
if I introduced a half-baked recipe,

I felt like people would say,

This isn't karaage!
So it was hard for me to get started.

However, with the recent rise in oil prices,
I started thinking that if I could easily make something that tastes like karaage,
it would be a good thing in many ways,
so I decided to give it a try!

But once I started testing,
my own image of karaage began to crumble,
and I started to lose track of
what exactly makes karaage, karaage.

At first, I thought that if the surface was crispy,
it would feel like karaage,

so I thought it would be fine to use a thicker coating
on the chicken sauté I've introduced before and cook it with a bit more oil, but
it wasn't that simple.

No, it was delicious enough.
It was delicious, but it just didn't quite feel like karaage.

So,
what are the important things for making it karaage?

As I thought about it,

1. Soy sauce flavor
2. Aroma of ginger and garlic
3. Crunchy texture
4. A crispy coating based on potato starch

I thought that if I had those four things,
it would become karaage even without frying!!
I thought.

For 1 and 2, I thought I could achieve it by rubbing in soy sauce, garlic, and ginger,
and for 3, I thought I could do it by slowly cooking the skin of the chicken thigh.

The problem is 4.

At first, I tried rubbing potato starch
into the seasoned chicken thigh and cooking it,

but that didn't produce the crunchiness I was hoping for.

When I thought about why it wasn't working,
I realized

that originally, chicken karaage
isn't made by rubbing in potato starch,
but by coating the surface with plenty of potato starch and deep-frying it in oil.

I realized that
if you don't apply it to the surface rather than rubbing it in, you won't get that texture.
I realized that.

So, I tried it with a generous amount of potato starch.

When I did that,
this time, when cooking,
if I didn't put a little extra oil in the frying pan,
the potato starch wouldn't cook through properly.

So, at first,
I put about 1 centimeter of oil in the frying pan
and was pan-frying it.

But,
with this, oil would remain after cooking,
and I felt like there might be a slightly better way.

From there, I thought about various things and tried making prototypes.

In the end, what I finally came up with
is the method I introduced on YouTube this time.

A method where you rub oil into the chicken
and then coat it with plenty of potato starch.

If you do that,
it gets heated by the oil from both the inside and outside of the coating,
so the potato starch reacts nicely with the oil, resulting in a crispy pan-fry.

It becomes a crispiness different from just coating it with potato starch.

And so,
this non-fried karaage is complete.

As I mention in the video,
I think it turned out quite well.

Also, trying it this time,
what I thought was 'wow' myself was

I turned the chicken thigh into 'all-purpose chicken thigh' first,
and then added the process of making it into karaage from there.

It might look like extra work at first glance,

but by going through the 'all-purpose chicken thigh' stage,
the chicken gets a solid flavor,
so there is no inconsistency in the taste.

With regular karaage,
you might marinate it for several hours,
but if you use the 'all-purpose chicken thigh',
the flavor gets in immediately just by rubbing it in,
and thanks to the effect of the initial potato starch,
it turns out incredibly juicy.

This time, as it is non-fried chicken karaage,
I am cooking it in a pan,
but even if you deep-fry it in oil,
I think it will definitely taste better if you go through the 'all-purpose chicken thigh' stage.

But well, things like this
are like a science experiment,

so I would be happy if you could enjoy making it.

As I was doing it,
I had all sorts of discoveries, like 'Oh wow!'
It made me want to praise myself for making it.

The deliciousness of deep-fried chicken
The deliciousness of chicken made without deep-frying

Each one has its own merits,
so please enjoy the differences.

The very popular parody song is
Hiroshi & Key-Bo's
"Sannenme no Uwaki" (Third Year Infidelity)

Please give it a listen if you'd like.

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Oil-Free Fried Chicken