Homemade Korean Fried Chicken

We are back to regular programming for even more food! Haha. A few months ago I wanted to finally try to make my own korean fried chicken. I so love 4Fingers fried chicken but they are expensive. So why not make my own.

The ingredients and process are fairly simple. I had to go through several recipes online and on YouTube to decide what to use for my own recipe.

The coating for the chicken comprises of a dash of salt & pepper, 1/3 cup cornstarch and 1/3 cup potato starch. Some recipes use eggs and/or water but I felt that would make the coating too thick and bready so I opted not to use those. Some recipes also just use cornstarch or potato starch but since I had both, I used both hehe.

Now the sauce that coats the fried chicken makes all the difference, in my opinion. Again, I had to tweak my own recipe as my neighborhood grocery has limited Asian ingredients. However, the ingredients are easily available in most groceries and you can always substitute. Portions below can vary depending on your taste preference. This is not baking so feel free to adjust hehe.

1 tbsp minced garlic (I love a lot of garlic, cut this in half if you're not like me)
Handful of chopped dried chili peppers (since I didn't have Korean red chili pepper paste)
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp honey (or corn syrup)
3 tbsp mirin (I love mirin!)
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp minced ginger

Mix the ingredients for the coating and simply toss the chicken in. Make sure they are thoroughly and evenly coated. Some people use a large ziplock bag but I cooked quite a lot so I had to use a bowl.

Deep fry the glorious chicken until golden brown. Carefully note that the secret to seriously crispy korean fried chicken is to double fry it. So don't over fry the first time. Take it out, let it cool then fry again. Make sure the oil is really hot as well. Use canola oil for less guilt hehe.

After the first fry...

After the second fry...

For the sauce, just throw everything in a saucepan and let it simmer until the sauce thickens. Since I used dried peppers instead of paste, I took them out after letting it simmer in the sauce.

And there you have it! PERFECT uber crispy Korean Fried Chicken! I served this during my birthday party celebration and it was a hit! What I love about them is that they stay crispy even after sitting on the dinner table for a long time. So sinful but so yummy! hehe.