Go to the Recipe: Taiwanese Fried Chicken Cutlet (Dà Jī Pái)
As someone who doesn't do much frying, I'm curious how much of the oil can be strained and used for other frying. Looking at the video it seems the oil is cloudy after the frying is done and I'm curious if that can be filter out with a coffee filter in the strainer, or if the oil is spent.
I am surprised you did not do the fillet with bone in.
The oil can be strained and re-used at least a few times with no loss in frying quality. In fact, used oil tends to fry up better, since there's more contact between the oil and the food. The explanation behind this is kinda fun: As oil is heated up, it degrades slightly through oxidation and hydrolosis, producing molecules that act as surfactants. Surfactants are amphiphilic, meaning they have both hydrophobic and hydrophilic ends. Surfactants lower the surface tension between the oil and the food, so the oil penetrates more freely, giving you a better fry overall.
There's definitely a tipping point at which your oil gets too dark/rich in surfactants. At this point, you'll notice an acrid, burnt taste and the oil may be a bit foamy. But up until this point, the oil is generally great for frying.
To strain your oil, a coffee filter or double layer of cheesecloth in a strainer would work well.
Hope this helps!
Thank you - this is very helpful.
Howdy! I’m allergic to eggs— what can I use instead?
Hi!
You could experiment with anything that improves viscosity/cling. Top of mind would actually be a small amount of xanthan gum, which would thicken the mixture and give you some of that stickiness without altering flavor. I would start as low as 0.25% of the weight of liquid marinade, or a tiny pinch thrown into the tapioca starch. This is a case where a little would go a long way, so be judicious.
Great recipe and people loved the crunch and overall flavour. But I found the coating very salty - is there anyway to reduce the quantity of light soy without losing flavour?
Also, rather than it being too dry, the batter was too wet I had to add a lot more tapioca starch to get the right consistency. Any idea why that would be?
Could it be that I substituted the Mijiu with Shaoxing?
Yes, that could be the reason for a salty coating. Shaoxing wine has a considerable amount of salt—not as much as soy sauce, but it definitely reads salty. Next time, I would substitute with Japanese sake if you can't find mijiu.
As for the batter consistency, I have two questions: How long was the chicken marinated? And did you start by adding one egg white? For the cutlet specifically, I found that the chicken took up more of the marinade over time, so I had to suggest a variable amount of egg white in the recipe dependent on that marinade time. The batter should be relatively loose before dredging, but not super runny. Next time, I would start by adding the tapioca starch first, then incrementally adding egg white (say, in 15-30g increments) until you get the right batter consistency.
Thanks! Very useful. Really appreciate the help
Made the Taiwanese Fried Chicken Cutlet for dinner. It was delicious and the husband loved it. My oil might have been a tad hotter as I don’t have a fancy hotplate but it still turned out great! And the spice is a must! Thanks Tim (Tes dialling in from South Africa)
In order to simplify the steps for multiple reasons, 1)can I combine the marinade with the dredge as one step : soy sauce, Miju, spices, tapioca starch and egg whites and let it marinade like this? 2)What can I use instead of the Miju if I want to avoid alcohol in my food?
1) Yes, you could definitely try it this way. Flavor wise, I can't predict how well the chicken would take in the marinade, since more filler (tapioca starch and egg white) might lead to less efficient salt diffusion. And to be clear, I would omit the sweet potato starch from the marinating step. Finally, when you go to dredge your chicken in sweet potato starch, I'd recommend looking at your marinated chicken to see if it is well coated in slurry. If it seems dry, you might need to add 10 to 15g of water or even egg white to bring it to the right consistency.
2) You can substitute water or chicken stock for the mijiu in this recipe, though you may want to adjust for two things: mild sweetness and acidity, which are defining features of mijiu. I'd consider adding a few drops of rice wine vinegar (5g or less) and a pinch of sugar or even rice syrup.
Good luck!
I posted after I made the Taiwanese popcorn thighs and thought I'd try this cutlet version. Again, easy recipe to follow and the coating is crazy crispy. I used the leftover sweet potato starch from the popcorn thighs, which I had frozen, and there was no difference in the final texture in this dish. My only note here is that I pounded one cutlet a bit thinner and preferred the thicker cutlet's ratio of meat to coating and probably preferred the popcorn thighs overall for the same reason. Onto the Chinese barbecue ribs recipe this weekend. Thanks Tim.
Nice work Al! 💪
Could I use Ultra-Sperse 3 or Ultra-Tex 3 in place of the tapioca starch? BTW - I made this recipe with modifications, the wrong starches, and homemade spice blends and it was still fantastic. I’m looking forward to making it correctly.
To be honest, I think both of these would give you a really nice result. Some key differences:
Ultra-Sperse 3: Very regular, thin and crispy but high-cling batter layer. Not squeaky, more crisp. This would probably require a stick blender for proper dispersion in the marinade/egg white mixture.
Ultra-Tex 3: Thicker, crunchier, craggier coating. Also no squeaky/chewy quality. Not as delicate as Ultra-sperse 3. You can just whisk this straight into the marinade/egg white mixture.
Tapioca starch: Slightly irregular fried coating. Less high-cling/viscosity than ultra-sperse or ultra-tex (bc we need heat to gelatinize, while the others swell in cold water). Gives a slightly squeaky layer that I found pleasant to eat.
Hope this helps! Glad the recipe has been so flexible for you so far.
