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Spicy, sweet, savory, and a bit funky—all the good flavors! I love gojuchang chili paste, so I’m always excited to find a new way to use it. I often saw this fried chicken on the Korean dramas and it looked so good! Sadly, there aren’t many Korean restaurants nearby, and the ones that are don’t serve it. So of course I had to try it myself! I scoured the internet and Pinterest for recipes and came up with one that fit my tastes and worked with ingredients I usually have.
The fried chicken is my extra crispy recipe, a mix of a tempura like batter and panko crust. It makes a super awesome crunchy texture that stands up to the dredge in sauce. If you have picky eaters, you can always leave half the chicken plain and it will still be super delicious.
The Sauce
For the sauce I mixed 2 different gojuchang pastes, one mild and one spicy. The rest of the sauce is butter, maple syrup, honey, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger and garlic powder. I usually have the frozen cubes of ginger in the freezer. Since I don’t cook enough Asian food, buying a knob of ginger seems like overkill, but if you want to do that more power to you!
Garnish and serve with some veggie rolls or some slaw with a Russian dressing. If you happen to have leftovers, which I doubt, cut them up and throw that chicken in a salad.
Korean Fried Chicken
Ingredients
CRISPY CHICKEN
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ¼ cup flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup water
- 1 ½ cup panko
- 2 chicken breasts
- Oil for frying canola
SAUCE
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp fresh or frozen ginger minced
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ½ cup gochujang
- Green onions diced
- Toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
CRISPY CHICKEN
- Make the batter by mixing egg, water, cornstarch, flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
- Pour panko onto a plate or shallow bowl.
- Cut chicken into nuggets, about 2” x 1 ½” pieces.
- Heat oil to about 350 Degrees F.
- Coat chicken in wet batter and dredge in breadcrumbs. Make sure to completely cover the chicken.
- Fry chicken in hot oil for 5 – 7 minutes or until golden brown, flip once in middle of cooking.
- Drain on a cooling rack over a baking sheet or on a plate covered in paper towels.
- Dust with salt.
SAUCE
- In a small saucepan melt butter and add all the other sauce ingredients. As soon as mixture bubbles turn heat to low and cook till coats the spoon.
- Toss nuggets in the Korean sauce.
- Garnish with seeds and green onions. Serve.
