🇨🇳 Chinese Cuisine

盐酥鸡 (Yan Su Ji)

Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken

Prep Time 30 minutes

Servings 4

Difficulty Easy

Bite-sized pieces of marinated chicken deep-fried with basil leaves, garlic, and dusted with white pepper and five-spice salt. An iconic night market snack across Taiwan and southern China.

Ingredients

500g chicken thigh cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon five-spice powder
2 tablespoons sweet potato starch
Oil for deep frying
Fresh basil leaves
Fried garlic chips
White pepper salt

Instructions

1 Marinate chicken pieces with soy sauce and five-spice for thirty minutes.
2 Coat in sweet potato starch and let rest five minutes.
3 Deep fry at 180C until golden and crispy.
4 Flash fry basil leaves and garlic chips separately.
5 Toss everything together, season with white pepper salt, and serve in paper.

Did You Know?

The secret to the crunch is sweet potato starch rather than wheat flour, which stays crispy much longer.