Karaage Chicken

Karaage chicken is a great addition to obentos, and it can be made with any boneless chicken, but thigh meat (momo-niku) is usually used as it's more moist than breast and tenders.  

It's easy to make.  

First,

Cut into big bite-sized pieces, and remove bits you don't want to eat, like gristle or fat:

300 gm chicken 

Place in a bowl and marinate for about 30 minutes (or more) in:

1 T soy sauce

1 T sake

½ T finely grated ginger and/or 1 clove finely grated garlic

Drain excess liquid from the chicken mixture and add:

½ beaten egg

Mix that around. Pour off excess liquid. Add:

1-2 T flour

1-2 T cornstarch

Mix until chicken is coated. It won't be completely coated with floury stuff; some sides will just look kind of wet with the marinade. Actually, it should all be pretty wet looking. Don't worry about it. That's normal.

When you're getting ready to cook, put about 1 cm of canola oil in a pot with a thick bottom. When a wooden chopstick put into the oil bubbles a little, the oil is hot enough.

Place chicken in the pan piece by piece carefully. Just do a few at a time, so that the oil temperature does not go down too much from the cool chicken. When browned on one side, turn over. Be sure all sides are cooked. Drain on a grill placed over newspaper to catch the drippings.

Serve with rice and vegetables.

When cool, you can put this in an airtight container in the fridge to add to your obentos for the next 3 days or so. You can also freeze it in individual servings. If you do that, take out what you need for your next day's obento the night before, and put it in the fridge. It will be ready to use in the morning.