You Have to Double Fry the Chicken
The best karaage chicken I have ever had was at Bessou Japanese Restaurant in the Bowery area of New York. The restaurant took great pride in highlighting the wonders of Japanese comfort food, and that cozy sense of well-being was expressed in one single dish, their karaage chicken, which was crunchier than any other. Unfortunately, like many favorite NYC restaurants, Bessou closed after the peak of the pandemic (you can still contact them for food service or follow them to keep up with their latest endeavors), but I will never forget this chicken. .
What is karaage chicken?
Karaage chicken is a Japanese-style fried chicken that is similar in cooking to Korean fried chicken. Sounds simple enough, but there are two distinct differences between American-style fried chicken and Japanese karaage fried chicken: the breading and frying procedure. Aside from the chicken itself, these two steps are the next most important parts of creating a perfectly crispy bird.
Most Western-style fried chicken involves dipping the chicken in eggs or buttermilk and a flour-based breading of sorts. Karaage chicken initially differs in that the marinade is actually filled with aromatic liquids such as soy sauce, ginger juice, and sake. More importantly, when it comes to crunch, flour is completely or mostly replaced by potato starch (katakuriko). (Go here for advice on alternative coatings.)
Flour, potato starch, and cornstarch are preferred coatings before frying because they all contain amylose and amylopectin , the molecules responsible for the crispy feel. Starchy flour with a higher concentration of these molecules will create crunchier compounds and result in a crispier piece of chicken. Compared to each other, flour has the lowest concentration of starch, followed by potato starch in second place and corn starch in first place with a slightly higher amylose content. So why isn’t cornstarch the best coating? It turns out that potato starch is the starch shell with the highest amylose content in addition to the largest granule size, according to Serious Eats’ potato starch study.
The size of potato starch granules is the key to its crunch resistance. Larger starch particles do not gelatinize as easily as finer flours and corn starch, meaning that the potato starch does not bind to as much water before evaporation in the hot oil occurs, allowing the crispy coating to stay crisp longer. If you can’t find potato starch at the grocery store, your next best bet is cornstarch or a mixture of cornstarch and all-purpose flour to get closer to a crispy crust.
Fry the chicken twice
Once you’ve coated the chicken with the best starch for the job, the next step is to fry the bird until it’s crispy. Fry them and then fry them again. The crispy glaze is a combination of a starchy layer and double roasting at two different temperatures. Double-frying the chicken with refrigeration for a few minutes without oil between dips in the pool is critical to evaporating as much water from the skin as possible without overcooking the tender chicken inside.
While there are various examples of why double frying makes food crunchier, common in both chicken and Belgian fries , the science behind frying at two different temperatures is less clear. Based on optimal temperatures for roasting chicken, the two temperatures seem to serve different purposes: to cook the meat thoroughly and to remove any remaining moisture. Karaage chicken takes its initial baptism at around 325-350°F, depending on the recipe you’re using, and the chicken spends more time at that temperature – about five or six minutes.
Deep frying always pushes out moisture, but here the lower temperature allows the chicken to be almost cooked through and the starchy surface to get crispy. When starches gelatinize, the heat allows the molecules to restructure as the water evaporates and creates more direct evaporation channels. This restructuring of the breading is perceived by us as a “crunch”. The chicken rests for about five minutes, and as it cools, moisture is drawn to the surface and continues to evaporate. This is when once fried chicken can become raw.
The second roast usually takes place at about 375-400°F for a shorter period of time, about two minutes. This fry cooks the meat and evaporates the new moisture that has come to the surface and breading while resting. Thanks to the new starch structure, moisture leaves faster, and due to the high temperature, the Maillard reaction proceeds quickly. When you take the chicken out after this quick second dip, you are left with a thick, deep browned crust that stays crisp for hours.
Prepare the karaage chicken ahead of time
You can cook karaage chicken ahead of time. I hate deep-frying when my friends are visiting because it smells of oil in my apartment. If you’re throwing a party, roast the karaage chicken a few hours in advance and let it cool to room temperature. This gives you a good two to three hour window to air out and do other party preparations. Then reheat the chicken before serving in the oven at 350°F for five or ten minutes.
You can also cook karaage chicken much earlier by refrigeration after the first frying. Before Bessou closed, they were selling homemade meal kits that you could make at home, and I brought home their karaage chicken kit. (It was a great way to get restaurant-quality food in the midst of a pandemic.) The first roast cooks the meat, helps the moisture begin to migrate, and restructures the starches, and that work remains even after you’ve been in the fridge for a day. or three. You can also pre-sear the chicken and finish it off with a second roast when you’re ready (even if you’re not ready for a few days). Karaage chicken will give you a new crunchy standard, and luckily you can apply this frying method to your grandma’s recipe too.