Chicken Karaage (唐揚げ) and a Short History of Fat in Japanese Cooking

Deep-fried foods have been developed and enjoyed around the globe for millennia, and Japan is no exception. There is tempura (天ぷら), pieces of seafood and vegetables fried in a light coating of egg, flour and water. There is tonkatsu (豚カツ), breaded pork cutlets fried and served with sliced cabbage and a thick Worcestershire-style sauce. There is korokke (コロッケ), deep-fried balls of mashed potato covered in breadcrumbs. Finally, there is karaage (唐揚げ), bite-sized pieces of tender chicken seasoned in a ginger soy mixture, dipped in flour and starch and deep-fried until coated in a crispy golden robe.

Yoshitoshi, “Delicious Habits of a Prostitute” (1888), from the series 32 Aspects of Customs and Manners, depicts a woman eating shrimp tempura

What is the thread that unites these edible delights? Other than the prodigious quantities of oil required to produce them, they are all dishes borrowed and adapted from the outside, and were virtually absent from the Japanese islands, let alone popular, until a few centuries ago.

Casting our gaze a little further into the depths of history, we find a cuisine where the use of fats and oils for cooking are remarkably rare. In fact, we find a cuisine characterized by this notable absence. There are many overlapping reasons that account for this particularity.

No-Fat Cuisine: Cooking in Pre-Modern Japan

The practice of raising livestock for meat and dairy had not yet developed on the continent when the first rice plants arrived in Japan, via Korea, along with the techniques required to cultivate them. Although a few pigs and cows also disembarked onto Japanese soils in the same period, there was no apparent incentive at the time to systematically raise them for subsistence needs. In fact, chickens were regarded as pets and as sacred animals, and cows were rare and precious, used mostly for sacrificial offerings.

The spread of rice agriculture across Japan also drove much of the game they had previously relied on to the forests and mountains, and away from the more densely populated plains. Coupled with the scarcity of animal meat was the fact that Japan’s two main religious currents, indigenous Shinto and imported Buddhism, discouraged meat eating and the killing of animals.

As for plant oils, the Japanese did cultivate sesame seeds and press them into oil, but it was so pricey that it was mainly used as a seasoning for dishes, in its aromatic toasted form, rather than as a cooking medium.

Two woodblock engravings by Matsukawa Hanzan, depicting the process for making white sesame oil. From Seiyū Roku [On Oil Manufacturing], written by Nagatsune Ōkura (1836)

All this to say that by the time Japan reached its ‘Golden Age’ of medieval court culture (794-1192), when all the cooking techniques that were to form the basis of traditional Japanese cooking were developed and canonized, fats and oils were simply not a mainstay of the Japanese pantry.

Deep-Fried: a 19th Century Street Food Trend

Utagawa Hiroshige. “Prosperous Joruri District (Street Vendors and Customers in a Busy Market)” (1852). Here, we glimpse at a scene from a lively street market in 19th century Edo (now Tokyo), including two food stalls: one selling kobayaki, grilled eel (middle left), and the other, tempura (middle right).

The first deep-fried food to take hold in Japan was tempura. The technique was likely introduced by the Portuguese at the end of the 16th century, but it did not become popular until the 1770s, when it became a popular snack food, sold at street stalls in the bustling capital of Edo. At the time, the nobility, unaccustomed to the taste of fat, regarded these tidbits of crispy batter as unrefined fare, unsuited to the cultivated palate. The start of the 19th century saw the appearance of the first tempura restaurants, but it would be a few decades still before the appreciation for tempura would trickle up the social ladder and become a mainstay in Japanese cooking.

Crucial to the popularization of tempura was the increasing availability of rapeseed oil, which was far cheaper than sesame oil. Rapeseed oil production increased to meet demands for fuel for lighting. New oil-pressing techniques were developed, which produced a purer oil that could be used for cooking.

Two woodblock engravings by Matsukawa Hanzan, depicting some of the steps involved in the extraction of rapeseed oil in Osaka. From Seiyū Roku [On Oil Manufacturing], written by Nagatsune Ōkura (1836)

The Japanization of Fat

During the Meiji Restoration, as Japan opened its doors to the world, came a new wave of influence from the West. During this period, progress was the name of the game and Western ideas were seen as the key to unlock a promising future. Japanese cooking and diet were not immune to these sweeping changes. In fact, in an effort to promote Western cuisine, the Emperor lifted the ban on red meat that had been in effect for much of Japanese history, but especially during the Edo Era (1603-1867), and Japan absorbed and adapted many dishes and cooking techniques. What is now known collectively as Yoshoku, includes all the Japanized versions of European dishes adopted during the Meiji Restoration, many of them meat-centred. Among them, we find many deep fried dishes, including katsu (カツ), from the English cutlet, itself from the French côtelette, korokke (コロッケ), from the French croquette, and furai (フライ) from the English fry, as well as other dishes such as curry (カレー, which I’ve written about here) and spaghetti (スパゲッティ).

The origins of karaage are murkier, but were likely influenced by Chinese cuisine and did not become popular until the 20th century. In any case, these bites of soy-flavoured fried chicken are now popular both in restaurants across Japan, and in the home kitchen, where they are often added to bento boxes (packed lunches).

Healthy Fried Chicken?

To make my chicken karaage, I followed the instructions provided by Nami from Just One Cookbook, but modified the ingredients, taking care to choose foods that were least likely to cause inflammation in the body, even, and perhaps especially, when cooked in fat at high-temperatures.

This recipe contains no industrial seed oils (and therefore no additives, no chemical residues and no trans-fats), and also no gluten and no nightshades. More important is what it does contain: local free-range chicken thighs, a homemade additive-free marinade, organic root vegetable-derived flours and starches, and a minimally-processed highly-stable oil with a high smoke point.

Actually, diving in the literature on deep-frying, I came to the conclusion that most of reasons for which fried foods are maligned have more to do with how it is done in today’s industrial food complex, and less to do with the cooking method itself.

This should make intuitive sense. Deep-frying has been enjoyed around the world for millennia and offers as many advantages and disadvantages, nutrition-wise, over any method of food preparation.

Choose your Fat Wisely

Fat is an essential nutrient to human health, and yet, when you look at the contradictory information we are fed, the pervasive dogmas that persist despite a mysterious lack of scientific backing, and the overblown news headlines, it is no wonder that people are confused about fat, if not downright afraid of it.

I love fat and eat it quite liberally, but I am very careful about which sources I choose to include in my diet. When picking the oils and fats to populate my pantry, I consider the following things

1) How is it processed?

Gone are the days of pressing rapeseed oil using steam and the power of watermills, as was done in Matsukawa Hanzan’s 19th century engravings shown above. Instead, most of the oils used in food production today, the “vegetable oils” — including safflower, canola, corn and soy, are extracted using a petroleum-based solvent, usually hexane, and very high heat. A second wave of chemicals are then introduced to deodorize the extracted oils. These extreme levels of heat, light and chemical exposure cause the oils to oxidize, creating two dangerous compounds. The first of these, trans-fat, has been shown to significantly increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The second, lipid peroxidase, damages DNA, cell membranes and proteins, increasing the risk for chronic illnesses. Chemically-extracted oils also usually contain additives, in the form of synthetic antioxidants introduced in an attempt to prevent rancidity and oxidation, a hopeless effort, given a aforementioned processes. Many of these added compounds have already been shown to have negative impacts on human health.

2) Is it genetically modified?

The large majority of the plants used to make industrial seed oils are genetically modified: 88 percent of corn (88 percent), cotton (94 percent), rapeseed (93 percent) and soy (94 percent).

3) What is the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio?

The current scientific understanding is that to achieve optimal health, is does not matter so much how much or how little of a certain type of PUFA you consume, but rather the ratio of one to the other. We know from anthropological studies of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, that their diet contained a ratio of about 1 to 1. The modern North-American diet, on the other hand, thanks in large part to industrial seed oils, has an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 10-20 to 1!

Quality matters too. Eating omega-6 in the form of whole foods like nuts, seeds and grass-fed chickens, surrounded by fibre, vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients dampens its pro-inflammatory effects. Some nutrients also protect polyunsaturated fats from oxidizing.

For high heat cooking, like deep-frying, which usually requires temperature between 325°F and of 375°F (162°C to 190°C, a fourth consideration is warranted:

4) What is the smoke point?

The smoke point of an oil or fat is the temperature at which it starts to oxidize. In the body, oxidized lipids damage our cells and cause inflammation. Polyunsaturated fats are the least stable, oxidizing at relatively low temperatures. Saturated fats, on the other hand, are highly stable, which is why rendered animal fats tend to make excellent cooking mediums (not to mention very flavourful ones!) This page by Dr. Sarah Ballantyne (The Paleo Mom) includes the smoke points for all the oils that fit the above criteria.

To learn more about fats and oils, and why these factors matter when considering long term health and wellness, I recommend these annotated articles from Chris Kresser‘s website:

• • How Healthy Fats: What You Need to Know
  • Industrial Seed Oils Are Making Us Sick

In the end I chose naturally refined (expeller-pressed) coconut oil. Although slightly less nutritious than virgin, cold-pressed coconut oil, refined coconut oil has a neutral taste and a much higher smoke point (450°F instead of 350°F). Other good choices include duck fat, lard, tallow and sustainably-sourced palm oil.

Joëlle

Chicken Karaage (唐揚げ)

Save Recipe

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 lb chicken thighs
• Refined, expeller-pressed coconut oil for frying*
For the marinade
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp shio koji
• 1 tbsp sake
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 tsp mirin
For the Batter
• 1/4 cup cassava flour
• 1/8 cup arrowroot starch
• 1/8 cup tapioca starch
For Garnishing
• Lemon
• Parsley
• Pepper

Instructions

1. Pat the chicken thigh dry with a paper towel, and cut them into bite-sized pieces of roughly the same size.
2. Add the chicken pieces to a glass container with all the marinade ingredients and mix well.
3. Leave the chicken to marinate in the fridge for an hour or two.
4. Meanwhile, place your jar of coconut oil in a bowl of warm water to liquify the oil.
5. Pour the oil into a large pot, and heat it to 320-338F (160-170C).
6. While the oil is heating, mix together cassava flour, arrowroot starch and tapioca starch in a small bowl.
7. When the oil has reached the correct temperature range, mix the flour mixture into the container with the chicken.
8. Start frying the chicken in batches of 3 to 5 pieces, by dropping them gently into the hot oil (long cooking chopsticks are good for this, but tongs would work as well).
9. Cook each batch for 90 seconds, or until the coating reaches a pale golden colour. Keep an eye on the temperature as well. If the temperature drops to low, the chicken will absorb more oil and become too greasy.
10. Place the fried pieces on a wire rack or on some paper towels to drain the excess oil.
11. When all the pieces are done, bring the temperature up to 356F (180C).
12. Fry the pieces a second time for 30-45 seconds until they reach a darker, golden brown colour, and place them back on the rack, or on a fresh layer of paper towels.
13. Serve immediately, with lemon wedges, parsley and some black pepper. いただきます！

Nutrition

Calories

1258 cal

Fat

73 g

Carbs

61 g

Protein

79 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

52

https://www.joellegaudet.com/2019/03/17/chicken-karaage/

References

Ishige, N. (2011). The history and culture of Japanese food. New York: Routledge.
Okura, N., Litchfield, C., & Ariga, E. (1974). Seiyū roku = On oil manufacturing. New Brunswick: N.J.

Chris Kresser — How Healthy Fats: What You Need to Know
Chris Kresser —Industrial Seed Oils Are Making Us Sick
The Paleo Mom — Which Fats Should You Eat?

Guidance and Inspiration

Just One Cookbook — Karaage (Japanese Fried Chicken

❤ Thank you Nami!