Korean Fried Chicken

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg chicken wings, split at the joint
• 120 g cornflour
• 60 g plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• vegetable oil, for frying
• 4 tbsp gochujang
• 3 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 tsp rice vinegar
• 4 garlic cloves, grated
• 20 g ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
• 5 spring onions, sliced

Method

1. Dry the wings thoroughly

   Pat them completely dry and season with salt. Any surface moisture turns the coating to paste in the fryer.

2. Mostly cornflour

   Mix the cornflour, flour and baking powder. The high proportion of cornflour is deliberate — it fries into a thin, glassy shell that survives being sauced, which a wheat-flour batter never does.

3. First fry, low

   Fry at 160°C for 8 minutes until pale and just cooked through, then lift out and rest 10 minutes. This fry cooks the chicken; it is not meant to colour it.

   8 min

4. Second fry, high

   Raise the oil to 190°C and fry again for 3 to 4 minutes until deep gold and audibly crisp. The double fry drives off the last of the surface moisture and is the entire reason Korean fried chicken stays crunchy under sauce.

   4 min

5. Warm the sauce

   Simmer the gochujang, honey, soy, vinegar, garlic and ginger for two minutes until glossy. Keep it off a hard boil or the honey turns bitter.

   2 min

6. Toss at the last second

   Toss the hot wings in the sauce and serve immediately with sesame seeds and spring onions. Every minute they sit in sauce costs crunch.