Name: Kouji Fried Chicken & Renkon Chips with a Nanban Dipping Sauce
Yield: Serves 2
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 2 garlic cloves, crushed; ½ tsp ground white pepper; ½ tsp salt; 1 tsp rice vinegar; 400 g (14 oz) renkon lotus root, washed; Maldon sea salt flakes, to taste; 400 ml (13½ fl oz/1¾ cups) water; 50 ml (2 fl oz/¼ cup) soy sauce; 1 tsp dried seaweed flakes (known as aonori); 50 g (1¾ oz/⅓ cup) plain (all-purpose) flour; 50 ml (2 fl oz/¼ cup) rice vinegar; ½ tsp sugar; 1 garlic clove, crushed; 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped; 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) skin-on, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 2.5cm (1in) pieces; 50 g (1¾ oz/½ cup) cornflour (cornstarch); 2 tsp soy sauce; 4 tbsp shio kouji; sunflower oil, for deep-frying; 2 tsp grated ginger; juice of 1 lime

Preparation info

Serves
2

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Nikkei Cuisine

By Luiz Hara

Published 2015

About

Few can resist a lip-smacking and crispy deep-fried chicken, whether it’s as frango à passarinho in Brazil or kara-age in Japan. Here I use shio kouji (fermented rice culture and salt) to marinate the chicken for extra umaminess. Lately, shio kouji has had a comeback as an ingredient in Japan – it adds a rich flavour to dishes, tenderises fish and meat, and is thought to have health benefits. Lotus root, known in Japan as renkon, is not an everyday veggie in the West, but if you have