Honey- Butter- Garlic Korean Fried Chicken

I noticed that many Koreans got this Honey-Butter  and Garlic obsession during my spring holiday in South Korea this year. They have honey, butter and garlic- flavoured chips, breads, pastries, sweets, nuts, rice cakes, anchovies,  lobsters, scallops, shrimps and or course in their staple guilty pleasure, their fried chicken. I might have missed out other delicious stuff which they drench  in this sweet and tangy sauce  but I will be very happy to give it a try.

This golden brown,  twice fried, drenched in butter chicken is not the healthiest thing  I put in my mouth, but my, it certainly is one of the yummiest! Sinfully delicious and irresistibly addicting.
I served it to colleagues at dinner and they loved it just as much.

Ingredients:

chicken drumstick, about 800 

marinated in : 5 cloves of garlic,salt and pepper,2 tbsp. rice wine

1 egg, beaten

1  cup potato starch

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup glutinous rice flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 cup raw peanuts

oil for deep frying

Sauce: 

1/2 cup softened butter

5 cloves  of garlic

4 tbsp. light soy sauce

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp. honey

Marinate chicken  in  minced garlic,salt and pepper , rice wine for 15-20 minutes.
Add the rest of the dry ingredients and the egg. Coat chicken well. 

 Heat oil in a deep pan/deep fryer. Deep fry for about 12 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, fry the peanuts  around 1-2 minutes.  Take chicken and peanuts out of the hot oil , drain and set aside.

Turn the heat to high, fry the chicken again until golden brown or until  the the skin crisps. Took me 12-15 more minutes. If you are using smaller pieces of chicken, adjust cooking time.

In a separate pan/wok, heat all the sauce ingredients and cook until bubbly/ foamy.

Put twice fried, crispy chicken along with the peanuts and toss until each chicken piece is well coated in Honey-Butter-Garlic sauce. Serve with  Pickled daikon and enjoy with lots of beer, like Koreans do.

Dak Galbi, my way.

Dak Galbi became my and hubby's favourite Korean dish during our holiday in South Korea last April. Don't get me wrong, we loved everything we ate during our 9 -day stay in Seoul and Busan. From the barbecues,  the stews, the kimchi, the bread and pastries, the Fried Chickens and even the street foods. However,  there's something about this cooked- on- the- table , spicy chicken dish that simply made crave us for more.

So when we landed back in Germany , I did what I do best, scourge the Internet for recipes of my newest food obsession and went online shopping for ingredients .

 I was so obsessed that I even made korean rice cakes (  Gareatteok ) from scratch since I can't find it in my place.

Unfortunately Sesame/ Perilla leaves is also not available in our area, I even bought sesame seeds for planting out of sheer frustration of missing an important ingredient . However,  I  can not   wait for months for these seeds to grow and give me a handful of its leaves.Patience is clearly NOT my virtue when it comes to food and cooking ,so I simply replace it with home grown herbs. I tried perilla leaves and it has its distinct taste. I used fresh sages, sweet thai basil and few mint leaves, it tasted pretty delish to me, FF and I had it twice since coming back home and we want to have it again next week!!

I also did not find Korean Curry powder so I ordered this Japanese Curry Roux from Amazon. I used my  cheese grater to turn it into powder like consistency.

Ingredients:

Serves 2-3 people

400 g chicken, cut into strips, bone and skin remove.  

I used chicken breast

2 cups cabbage

1 small carrot

1 cup korean rice cake

1 cup sweet potato

1 medium sized potato

2 stalks spring onion

a handful of perilla leaves 

( I replaced it with sage, sweet thai basil and 4 mint leaves)

1 cup mozzarella cheese

2 cups cooked korean rice

( short grain rice/sushi rice)

3 tbsp. korean dried seaweeds

1-2 tbsp. oil for frying

Marinade:

1 cube. Japanese curry roux or

 if you got korean curry powder, the better

1 tsp. grated ginger

6 cloves garlic, finely minced

3 tbsp. Korean chili paste ,Gochujang

1 tbs. Korean chilis powder, Gochugaru

use more if you like it really spicy!

2 tbsp. light soy sauce

1 tbsp. honey

1 tbsp. sugar

3 tbsp. rice vinegar

1 tbsp. roasted sesame oil

1. Mix all marinade ingredients together . Take about 1/3 of it and use it to marinate chicken strips for at least 1 hour. Keep the rest.

2. Add oil in the pan.Add you cabbage, then put sweet potato, carrot , chopped spring onion, perilla leaves ( hope you got some).

Scatter sliced potato and rice cake over vegetables.

 Put marinated chicken strips on top of the vegetable. Add the rest of the marinade. Turn on the heat.

Cook under medium high heat. The water from the vegetable will keep the dish from drying. Stir once in a while to avoid the ingredients from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Once the vegetables and chicken are cooked, add mozzarella cheese.  

If you want to eat Dak Galbi like the Koreans do, start eating while it bubbling and straight from the pan.  Enjoy it with lots of banchans /side dishes such as kimchi or lettuce leaves for wrapping. Eating is communal thing in Korea so sharing is the way to go. You can naturally scoop your portion into you plate/bowl if double dipping is not your thing but where's the fun in there?!😜

When there's almost nothing left on the pan but sauce and bits of pieces or veggies and meat. Dump the cold rice, add the seaweeds. Stir, stir, stir.

This is my favourite part of  Dak Galbi. I especially  enjoyed  scrapping off crusty rice at the bottom of  the pan!

Do try this dish and fall in love with Korean cuisine. If you're already at it , I wish you ', Bon Appetit! ''

Pickled Radish Korean Style

This  pickled radish is a perfect condiment to anything fried or  grilled, I've realised. Goes perfectly well with my KFC Recipe.

In a bowl, dissolve 200 g of white sugar, a tbsp. of salt in 1 cup or water and a cup of rice vinegar. 

Stir until sugar and salt is completely dissolved. 

Wash and peel about 600 g of radish.  A Korean daikon will be perfect for this recipe but any radish will do. Cut into  1 cm cubes. You're eating it so it doesn't have to be perfect!

Transfer cubed radish into your pickling solution. Cover and let it set overnight. 

Transfer into mason close jar and refrigerate for 2-3 days before serving. The Radish is super crunchy  and  the sour , sweetish sauce is just addicting.

Korean Fried Chicken in sticky, sweet, spicy Sauce

I love fried chicken. FF doesn't . Fo some reasons, he's not overly keen to have things greasy and deep-fried. He doesn't  like  eating chicken skin or chicken wings or  gnawing on its bones. You know, the good stuff.  So I tend to deep fry stuff less often than  I wish.  One of our secrets to our harmonious marriage.

Anyway, while staying a week in Sydney, we passed by Chinatown's Korean street everyday on the way to the hotel. Posters of bibimbap, Korean grilled meat, kimchi  and stews adorned most of  the restaurants'  facade. What stop me on my tract most of the time are the pictures perfectly golden brown fried chicken, drench in seductive red sauce. It looks sooooo good it must be illegal in some countries. I could almost see myself licking that sauce off my finger.

So I dragged a reluctant  FF in one of those Korean restaurant for dinner. We haven't had Korean food before and now is perfect time to try it.  We ordered a large portion of Korean Fired chicken asa KFC to many. The skin was super crispy , the meat succulent and tasty, the sauce , oh the sauce! It was sticky, sweet and spicy. It's exactly what our doctor doesn't  advice. Luckily,  he's on the other side of the world , probably nibbling on some carrot sticks. Meanwhile,  watching my non-finger linking husband polish his own digits is the best compliment that Korean cook could get that night. It was so good, we ate a lot of Korean Fried chickens after that and  left a trail of chicken carcass all over Australia.

When we got home, making my own  KFC became a life mission. Fortunately, recipes on the internet are plentiful and for free. A little tampering here and there and the first batch of chicken was  our dinner table.

 Few days after that, the second batch followed. Haven't heard any complain from FF yet, on the contrary, he was raving how good it was!

I served a bucket full of this to my friends last weekend. They literally butchered the fried chicken, agian. Yup, it was THAT good!

Ingredients:

1.5 kg Chicken , preferably wings or legs,  cut into pieces

1 tbsp. grated ginger

3 cloves of minced garlic

salt and pepper

1 cup corn or potato starch

 Grape seed oil for deep frying

Sweet and Spicy Sauce:

5-6 cloves garlic

a handful of dried chili, seeds removed, chop roughly

6 tbsp. light soy sauce

2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

3 tbsp. rice/corn syrup

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. ketchup

2 stalks of spring onions, white and green part separated

1 tbsp. toasted sesame seed

Wash chicken pieces under cold running water. Drain well.

In a large bowl, add chicken, garlic and ginger . Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

 Roll each piece of chicken in potato or corn starch until well coated. Heat oil in pan until temp. reaches 170-180 °C.

Deep fry chicken, in batches if necessary. If using wings, fry for about 10 minutes. If using drumstick and thigh, about 15minutes, depending on the size of the chicken.

 Put chicken in a strainer and let excess oil drip. Nope, you're not done yet! If using frying pan, remove the starch sediments that has settled at the bottom of the pan. Crack up the heat and put the chicken back into the hot oil! Yup, the Koreans went all out when it comes to their KFC. Apparently , double frying them chicken makes it extra, extra crispy. Cook for 10-12 more minutes  . 

 While chicken is cooking for the second time. Put  chopped garlic, dried chili, onion ( green part, set aside as garnish) and all the liquid in a pan.

Cook under medium low heat until sauce thickens .

Once the chicken is cooked and drained the second time, put fried chicken into the pan containing the sauce. Toss until  each chicken piece  is coated in sauce. 

Garnish with green onion and toasted sesame seed. Serve hot and with pickled radish. Now  watch how fast the contents of that plate vanish! It's like magic!