Korean fried chicken is a dish where chicken pieces are lightly coated and fried until crispy, often served as an appetizer or snack with pickled radishes and Korean-style beer. The batter is thin and the chicken is fried twice to achieve a crispy, transparent skin. Small chicken pieces are preferred, and the dish can be eaten plain or tossed in a sweet or spicy sauce.
Korean fried chicken, also traditionally referred to as yangnyeom chikin, is a Korean dish in which chicken pieces are lightly coated and fried until the outside is crispy and the inside meat is cooked through. Although other cuisines have their own versions of fried chicken, Korean-style tends to have a thinner, crispier outer coating because it’s fried in a method that cooks the fat off the chicken skin. It can be eaten plain or tossed in a soy-based sweet sauce or hot pepper-based sauce. The dish tends to be served as an appetizer or snack, rather than a main course, and is often accompanied by pickled radishes and Korean-style beer, which is brewed with rice or soju, a vodka-like Korean liquor that is made with rice.
Cooks tend to prefer using small pieces of chicken when preparing Korean fried chicken. The frying method is generally not designed for use with larger pieces of chicken because the meat may not be fully cooked when the outer coating reaches your preferred color and texture. Separate small pieces, such as wings and drumsticks, are often used to make the recipe outside Korea, while in Korea, whole small chickens may be fried and then later cut into separate pieces. This is because chickens in Korea are often smaller than in other areas of the world, especially the United States.
Korean fried chicken typically has a thin batter consisting mostly of roughly equal parts flour and water, with a small amount of cornstarch. Unlike fried chicken recipes from other cuisines, neither the chicken itself nor the batter tends to be seasoned before cooking. The chicken pieces may be lightly coated in flour to allow the batter to adhere, and then lightly dipped into the batter to form a thin layer.
The oil temperature recommended by many Korean fried chicken recipes tends to be around 350 degrees Fahrenheit (176.6 degrees Celsius). To get its thin, crispy, almost transparent skin, chicken usually goes through two cycles of frying, which is thought to give the inside meat more time to cook without making the outside overly crispy. It is first fried for about 10 minutes, then removed and allowed to drain and cool slightly for about three minutes. The chicken is usually fried once more for about 10 more minutes or until the outside is lightly browned with a smooth, thin texture and the chicken is cooked through. The chicken is usually lightly seasoned with salt and pepper once it’s done frying, and may be tossed in a soy- or chili-based sauce before serving.
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