Marinated Chicken, Japanese-Style (Tori-Nanbanzuke)

We are getting through our dinners very nicely now... Everything seems to have settled down, so all is well... ^_^

So anyway, back to today's dinner. Unlike most marinations, where you marinate BEFORE you cook, in this recipe, you actually cook the chicken before placing it in the marinade. Quite unusual, to say the least. But very very interesting, oh yes. And yummy? Well, why don't you just read on ;)

What you need:
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Cornflour, for coating the chicken
400g boneless chicken legs (thighs or drumsticks)
4 eggplants

Marinade:
1-inch piece of ginger
4cm stick of carrot
1-2 dried chillies
4 tablespoons Japanese rice vinegar
41/2 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce

What you do:

1. To assemble the marinade, cut the ginger and carrots into 1-inch long julienne strips. Remove the stems and seeds from the chillies and cut into small pieces. Combine all ingredients for the marinade in a small pan.
2. Cut the eggplants in half, and slice diagonally into 2cm pieces. Soak in water to soften the texture.
3. Preheat the vegetable oil to a low deep-frying temperature.
4. Cut the chicken into 1-inch cubes and coat lightly in cornflour. Deep-fry until golden brown.
5. While the chicken is still hot, place it in the marinade and leave for at least 30 minutes.
6. Drain the eggplant and wipe away the water. Deep-fry and place in the marinade with the chicken.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any eggplants handy, so I had to omit that. Apparently eggplants are quite strong anyway, so I might not like it. Even so, Hadi and Justin really really liked this dish, so it wasn't really anything crucial. Japanese rice vinegar is slightly less strong than Chinese rice vinegar, so do use that if you can. Otherwise, it might overwhelm the rest of the flavours. In this case, everything blended nicely together. The carrots and ginger also absorbed some of the marinade, and possible because of that, the ginger was not as overpowering. You can still taste the ginger though, and that makes it nice. Really nice. It was actually a bit too salty for me, but that was most likely because I seasoned the cornflour with some salt and chilli powder. Force of habit. Even if you don't do it, it should be fine, I think. More than fine. The sauce is strong enough. :)

One thing I didn't like about this recipe is that you have to deepfry the chicken pieces, sigh. Not only am I too lazy to, but it also uses obscene amounts of oil. Sigh, if only you can get chicken nice and crispy without deepfrying. But that's a dream for another day, I guess.

Not that the chicken *was* crispy. Soaking in a liquid for half an hour just gets rid of any crispiness really. Apparently, for better results, you're supposed to marinate it for as long as you can, while the chicken is nice and hot. I dunno what would happen if you didn't, but the chicken absorbed the marinade nicely when I put it in hot (as in, straight from the deepfrying)

But, in the end, the chicken was still very yummy. I'll definitely make this again. Maybe bake the chicken, instead of frying it. If you like your food hot (like I do) you should reheat this briefly over the stove before consuming ;) Or just eat with hot rice :D

Quote of the day: My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

On another note, IT'S RAYA! At least in the UK. So Happy Raya people! And Happy Advanced Raya to those of you who don't have their Raya yet. Maaf Zahir Batin! Hee~ Do I not look pretty? My official Raya picture! ;) Too bad that I forgot to bake some cookies! Gah! Not that anyone's gonna visit, but it would have been nice. Cookies, drool~~