Japanese Style Fried Chicken

On my first trip to Boston to visit a high school friend, her group of friends took us to a Chinese/Japanese restaurant and urged me to try the "aged dofu". Although they assumed that I would know what this was, I had no idea. My thoughts flitted to the infamous "stinky tofu" I had once heard of, a fermented soy dish rumored to meet its rather illustrious name with a vengeance. I was apprehensive, but they were getting one for the table and before I could say anything the orders were taken. Sticky, brown mystery cubes flew around in my thoughts.  I wasn't prepared for this malodorous dish to ruin my appetite for the night, but then again maybe it would be one of those things where I would get hooked. But when the dish came out, I saw (or rather smelled) that this seemed to be rather ordinary tofu, other than the fact it was deep fried. Confusion ensued. How was this tofu "aged"? Was it some kind of acquired taste that amateurs couldn't even detect?

A quick look at the menu cleared things up. This was not "aged" tofu but "age dofu", properly pronounced agé-dofu. It was a moment where I clearly saw something lost in translation in a fairly humorous manner. I tried to explain the humor of the situation to my hosts, but didn't quite succeed:
"You see, when you said 'aged', I thought you meant it was fermented and I was scared but then I realized that the word isn't 'age', it's the Japanese word 'agé' that means deep fried, so it's not actually aged at all..."

...I'd like to say that you had to be there, but unfortunately I just don't have what it takes to be funny.
However, this post isn't about age-dofu or stinky tofu or any tofu for that matter. It's about a delicious chicken salad on rice, marinated in soy sauce and ginger, and "agéd", or deep fried.

 

There are two major styles of Japanese fried chicken--the flour batter coated kara-agé and the potato starch coated tatsuta-agé. I like the tatsuta variety since the potato starch gives it a distinctive crispness that's delicious, and it's always marinated first so that the chicken inside is moist and full of flavor.

The fried chicken is put on a bed of fresh tomato and lettuce on hot rice, and a spicy sauce flavored with ginger and spring onions is poured on top. I make this dish for parties a lot of the time, since while it is a Japanese recipe, there's a significant amount of Western influence and there aren't any weird ingredients like seaweed or fermented soy beans.

Chicken Tatsuta-agé Salad:

Ingredients: (serves 4)
600g chicken thighs
potato starch: as needed
1 tomato
3-4 leaves of lettuce

marinade:
3tbsp soy sauce
4tbsp cooking sake (rice wine)
1 pc ginger, grated (about twice the size of a quarter)

for sauce:
5tbsp soy sauce 
1 tbsp vinegar (rice or white)
1 tbsp cooking sake (rice wine)
2tbsp sugar
1/2 cup spring onions (minced)
2 chili peppers (dried, seeded, and minced)

1. Cut the chicken into bite sized bits and soak in the marinade for at least 20 minutes.
2. Mix the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl, chop the tomatoes and lettuce.
3. Wipe off the excess liquid with your fingers, and coat each chicken piece with potato starch. Squeeze each piece in your hand, making sure that there's no liquid left on the surface.
4. Heat at least five cm of oil in a medium-sized pan over medium heat, until a drop of potato starch mixed with marinade first sinks part way down and immediate floats sizzling to the surface.
5. Fry the chicken pieces in the oil. When the pieces rise to the surface and are brown, they're done.
6. Lay the fried pieces on a paper towel to let the excess oil drain.
7. Serve on a bed of lettuce and tomato with the sauce poured on top. You can eat this with rice on the side, or put the whole thing on top of the rice so that the sauce soaks into the rice.