Taiwanese style fried chicken / 鹽酥雞

Fried food is usually is one of the first things to disappear from a Celiac patient's diet. Normally, this is a good thing. We all know that we should eat more salad over fish and chips anyway. Let's be honest though, sometimes, you just crave that smell of fresh fried food. Fortunately, traditional Taiwanese style fried chicken is already made gluten free! Instead of bread crumbs or wheat flour, I use sweet potato starch to coat the chicken. Since I still don't want too much fat in my family's diet, I've adapted the usual recipe for a pan-frying method with less oil. This makes for a special treat whenever you want to indulge yourself in just a little bit of junk food.


Recipe: Taiwanese style fried chicken / 鹽酥雞

Serving: 2 adult servings

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
salt
pepper
garlic powder (can substitute for fresh garlic)
ginger powder (can substitute for fresh ginger)
dried basil
Chinese rice wine, also known as mijiu / 米酒 (not Japanese mirin!)
sweet potato starch / 番薯粉 or 地瓜粉
olive oil
fresh basil (optional)


Directions:

Cut chicken breasts into long slices. Place chicken in a medium sized bowl, sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder, dried basil, and a tablespoon of Chinese rice wine/mijiu. If you know you won't use fresh basil for the later part of this recipe, use more dried basil in the marinade now. The amount of spices you use should be inversely proportional to the length of marination time. My preference is to use only a little seasoning and marinate for 24 hours. If you are pressed for time, increase the seasoning amount and marinate for at least 30 minutes. To marinate overnight, cover bowl and refrigerate.

Once marination is done, set meat next to stove. If you have fresh basil, wash and dry basil, set aside.

In separate bowl, pour out 2-3 cups of sweet potato starch. You won't use all of it, but I find it easier to have some extra in case of spills. Traditionally thick/coarse ground starch is used for a more crispy texture, but it's harder to find in U.S., so I use thin ground starch myself. You should be able to find sweet potato starch in your local Asian grocery store. Look for 番薯粉 or 地瓜粉 on the label.

Coat chicken pieces with sweet potato starch. *Let the coated chicken pieces stand for few minutes. The starch should be soaked through and sticking to the chicken before you fry them.* If you put the chicken into the pan immediately after coating, the starch won't have time to absorb the moisture from the chicken and it will flake off in the cooking process.

Meanwhile, take a flat bottom pan with deep sides. Pour enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Turn stove on medium high heat (I have a gas stove, you may need to adjust the heat according to your stove setting). Once oil is heated, put chicken pieces into the pan. Depending on your pan size, you may need to divide the chicken into several batches.

Once one side of chicken is cooked, flip the chicken to cook other side. Take a shallow bowl or deep dish and cover it with paper towels (see photo below). Place cooked chicken in dish.

If cooking the chicken in batches, repeat above steps until all chicken pieces are cooked and set aside. At this point, there may be some blackened flakes floating in the oil, which you can scrape off into separate bowl. If needed, add just a little bit of olive oil to the pan.

If you have fresh basil, add it to the pan for 15-20 seconds or until you smell the aroma of frying basil.

Add all the chicken pieces back to pan and pan fry them for 30-45 seconds. This second frying process gives the chicken a more crispy texture.

Serve and enjoy while it's hot!

Note: Fresh basil is a key element of this dish as it gives the chicken so much more aroma and flavor. Cooking in snowy Chicago though, I know how difficult/expensive it is to get fresh basil sometimes. My way of getting around the problem is to use additional herbs in the initial marinade if I know I am going to leave out basil in the second frying process. I don't recommend adding dried basil during the frying process because it will blacken and burn way too quickly in the high heat.