CHICKEN KARAGE

Recently, an order of wingettes arrived at my place. First thing that comes to anyone's mind is fried wings! I did try fried chicken a number of times, some of them are too cumbersome with the separate bowl of flour, bread crumb, egg wash or batter. But recently I have been following this Japanese home cook "Kimono mom", she cooks traditional Japanese food. And what makes it so fun to watch is her assistant. It is a year old kid and we get a glimpse of how difficult it can get while cooking, having a little kid at home. It is so cute! So few days back, she made traditional Japanese chicken fry, Chicken karage. Though I used my own seasoning, their frying style seemed quite different from the ones I use. So I got on with it and tried some out.

First off, I marinated my wings with salt, red chili powder, mixed spices, tomato ketchup, minced garlic, ginger paste and pickle brine. What she did to mix up everything thoroughly was, she took the wings in a plastic bag, added in the marinade and mixed it really well. Once done, she tied up the bag and left it in the fridge for 30 minutes. So I followed it step by step. After 30 minutes, I took out few of the wings leaving the rest in the freezer and added in an egg, some flour and cornstarch. And that's it, I mixed them up and deep fried them. That's how easy it was.

It wasn't as crispy as the ones with double coats of flour but it was crispy enough to give out that beautiful sound of crunch. I don't know if it is just me but the sound of crunch is one of the sole reasons that bring me back to fried chicken. Moreover, it took back to my BUET days. There was this food shop in Palashi, where we often bought a set menu including fried rice, vegetable and fried chicken. I don't even have a count of how many times that set menu saved me from starvation. So this fried wings tasted just like the fried chicken of the set menu. Verification was done by my hubby, so it wasn't just me, or he could have said it to make me happy! (you never know) But the emotions that came along was indescribable.

Ingredients:

(For the marinade)

8 pcs chicken wings

1 tsp salt

1 tsp red chili powder

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp mixed spices

0.75 tbsp ginger paste

1 tsp garlic

1 tbsp pickle brine/vinegar

(For the coating)

4 tbsp all purpose flour

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 pcs egg