Cooking Lab - Five Spice Beer Fried Chicken 年菜之一: 招財黃金啤酒鹽酥雞

A special Chinese New Year's Eve treat to indulge in just a little bit of moreish junk food.

Not the KFC Colonel Sanders' eleven secret herb & spices - just the five spices & Beer in this dish! 

The literal translation is salted crispy chicken - the forever popular Taiwanese soul food. 

  

Fresh basil is the key element of this dish - they will give the chicken so much flavour and aroma!!

Enjoy before I finish them up!

(c) GMV - Got My Vote!

The Taiwanese-style fried chicken involves marinating the meat first. The chicken pieces are soaked in a mixture of soy/oyster sauce, rice wine and ample Aussie beer just for kicks.

Ingredients:

- 1 whole chicken breast

- 1/2 cup oyster sauce

- 1T sugar syrup 

- 1T Chinese cooking wine

- 1/2 Beer

- Salt & Pepper

- 1 egg

- 1 cup of Sweet Potato Statch

- 1 bunch of fresh Thai Basil (this variety is more fragrant than the normal basil - closest I can find to match the authentic taste)

- Five-Spice Fried Chicken Salt

This is the secret ingredient - Sweet Potato Starch. It's what keeping the coating crispy and holding a great crunch long after frying. Perfect for texture synergy with the incredible juicy chicken inside.

Instructions:

1. Marinate the chicken pieces overnight.

2. Add an egg to the mixture & mix well.

3. Lightly toss the chicken pieces in the sweet potato starch.

4. Deep fried till golden.

5. Throw in some Thai Basil for 20 seconds at the end. 

Crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. Amazingly flavourful. 

Very nice when you can taste a hint of beer:)

Add a generous sprinkling of the special 5-spice fried chicken salt to bring a perfect finish to a moreish snack.

Hmmm...crispy, salty and spice-peppery. Yum! So very addictive. 

Concoted a new flavour.

Well, like Christmas dinner preparation, CNY dinner is equally exhausting. Usually one need to prepare 6,8 or 10 dishes for this special night.

A glass of wine in one hand, pour in 1/2 glass of beer into the marinate. Hey, if I needed a drink, the chicken needed one too.

This new variation reflect my creativity, resourcefulness and ...,,drunkness. Haha.

The best part of this dish is the mandatory garnish - the deep fried Thai bas leaves!! Goes so well with another drink ...

Turn out to be so addictive even more so than KFC.