Japanese-style Fried Chicken (tatsuta-age)

[sbj]

This is probably not news to any of the foodies here, but I am just now learning that Japanese-style fried chicken is often made using potato starch and rice flour. I was reading a local restaurant review where the author was commenting on a local Hawaiian BBQ. He really liked the very light fried chicken which was marinated in ginger, dusted with sweet rice flour, and then fried. I did some surfing and ran across a few recipes for "Tatsuta-Age:"

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Basically it is chicken marinated in soy sauce with ginger, then coated with rice flour or corn starch or potato starch or some combination, and fried. The same style is also used on a variety of fish and pork. I've used corn starch before for fried pork (sweet and sour pork) and I've used corn starch for chicken, but I haven't yet tried rice flour or potato starch for frying meat or fish.

According to Wikipedia, Tatsuta-Age traditionally uses katakuri-ko (dogtooth violet starch) as the starch (the plant is actually a lily). But that seems to be either unavailable or really expensive so it is now common to use potato starch or corn starch.

Anywho - I did not realize that potato starch and rice flour were so often used for frying in Japanese dishes. Apparently potato starch can also be used for tempura batter or to lighten it up a bit.

[purple]

This is probably not news to any of the foodies here, but I am just now learning that Japanese-style fried chicken is often made using potato starch and rice flour. I was reading a local restaurant review where the author was commenting on a local Hawaiian BBQ. He really liked the very light fried chicken which was marinated in ginger, dusted with sweet rice flour, and then fried. I did some surfing and ran across a few recipes for "Tatsuta-Age:"

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Basically it is chicken marinated in soy sauce with ginger, then coated with rice flour or corn starch or potato starch or some combination, and fried. The same style is also used on a variety of fish and pork. I've used corn starch before for fried pork (sweet and sour pork) and I've used corn starch for chicken, but I haven't yet tried rice flour or potato starch for frying meat or fish.

According to Wikipedia, Tatsuta-Age traditionally uses katakuri-ko (dogtooth violet starch) as the starch (the plant is actually a lily). But that seems to be either unavailable or really expensive so it is now common to use potato starch or corn starch.

Anywho - I did not realize that potato starch and rice flour were so often used for frying in Japanese dishes. Apparently potato starch can also be used for tempura batter or to lighten it up a bit.

Thanks for the links. My dd and I love sweet and sour chicken but I never use "crispy" chicken bits...these looks like yummy recipes to try that way...thanks!

[sbj]

Thanks for the links. My dd and I love sweet and sour chicken but I never use "crispy" chicken bits...these looks like yummy recipes to try that way...thanks!

If you ever try sweet and sour pork (I know it's not as healthy!) you cannot go wrong with cornstarch. Cube your pork, salt liberally, make a fairly thick paste of corn starch and water, mix with the pork and let set for a few minutes. Then use a dry batch of corn starch to 'flour' each piece of marinated pork. Deep fry and you have a little bit of unhealthy but delicious heaven.