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The Fried Chicken 100 · make it at home

Taiwanese salt-and-pepper popcorn chicken with fried basil

1 hr marinate, 25 min · 4

The night-market fried chicken (yan su ji): five-spice marinated thigh in a coarse sweet-potato-starch crust that fries up spiky, tossed with fried basil and a peppery salt. Cut a whole thigh flat instead and you have the giant Hot-Star cutlet.

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The real one

You need

• 700 g (1 1/2 lb) boneless chicken thighs, cut into 3 cm (1 1/4 in) pieces (or 2 large boneless breasts, butterflied and pounded thin, for cutlets)
• Marinade: 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, 1 tsp sugar, 3 garlic cloves grated, 1/2 tsp five-spice powder, 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1 egg, beaten
• 120 g (1 cup) coarse sweet potato starch (from Asian grocers; potato starch works too)
• Oil for frying, about 1.5 liters (1 1/2 quarts)
• A big handful of Thai basil leaves, washed and dried very well
• Seasoning salt: 1 tsp fine salt, 1 tsp white pepper, 1/4 tsp five-spice, 1/2 tsp chilli powder (optional)

How to make it

1. Marinate (1 hr): Mix the marinade, add the chicken, and refrigerate 1 hour (up to overnight). Stir in the beaten egg just before coating.
2. Coat (5 min): Toss the pieces in the sweet potato starch, pressing it on, then let them sit 5 minutes until the starch looks damp in places: that's what makes the spiky crust.
3. Fry (5 min a batch): Heat oil to 170°C (340°F) and fry in batches 4 to 5 minutes until golden and cooked through (cutlets take 5 to 6 minutes). Drain on a rack. For extra crunch, refry everything at 190°C (375°F) for 1 minute.
4. Fry the basil (10 sec): Stand back and drop the basil into the hot oil; it will spit. Fry 10 seconds until translucent and crisp, then lift out.
5. Season (1 min): Toss the hot chicken in a bowl with the seasoning salt and fried basil. Serve in paper bags with skewers, the night-market way.

Tips

• The basil must be bone-dry before it hits the oil or it will spatter hard.
• For a Hot-Star cutlet, pound a butterflied breast to 1 cm (1/2 in), marinate whole, and fry flat.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any restaurant's recipe.