KARAAGE CHICKEN LOLLIPOPS
Karaage Chicken Lollipops are a fancy form of Karaage Chicken. They are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. As the name suggests, a chicken lollipop comes with a bone as a stick, attached to the meat that is shaped into a ball.
My Karaage Chicken Lollipops are made with chicken wingettes by pushing the meat and skin down to the end of the bone. By removing one bone (wingettes have two thin bones), it becomes a lollipop-like shape.
In Japan, it is not called chicken lollipop, but called tulip chicken (チューリップチキン) because it resembles a tulip.
DIFFERENT WAYS OF MAKING CHICKEN LOLLIPOPS
Most chicken lollipop recipes use chicken wings. I used only the wingettes (middle part of the chicken wing) to make chicken lollipops, but you can also make them with drumettes.
Some recipes even use a drumstick, although it will be a very large lollipop.
There are two ways of making a lollipop shape using a winglette or a drumette.
Method 1: Push the flesh to the wider end of the bone (away from the tip) by sliding it along the bone to the end. By pushing the flesh firmly, it forms a round shape like a lollipop with a bone as a stick. The wingette has two bones inside, so remove the thinner bone to make it look like a lollipop.
Method 2: Push the flesh down to the wider end of the bone (away from the tip) by sliding it along the bone, then flip the flesh over to the other end of the bone, turning the flesh inside out. This will make a larger lollipop than the lollipop made in Method 1. See the photo below.
Method 1 makes a compact lollipop that looks like a tulip before opening petals. Method 2 makes a larger lollipop that resembles a tulip with opened petals. I personally think that Method 1 is suited to the wingette and Method 2 is suited to the drumette.
If you are not fussed about the appearance, you can leave the two bones intact when making lollipops with wingettes like the photo below.
WHAT’S IN MY KARAAGE CHICKEN LOLLIPOPS
The ingredients are very similar to that of Karaage Chicken except that each piece of chicken comes with a bone. My recipe uses Method 1 to make chicken lollipops.
I used wingettes with the tip intact because it is easier to make a lollipop this way than making it without the tip.
These days supermarkets sell chicken wings without tips (sold as V-wing) or a mixture of wingettes and drumettes (sold as chicken nibbles) and it’s not easy to find chicken wings with the three portions intact. I sometimes have to buy chicken wings with all three portions intact at the chicken shop instead of the supermarket.
If you can only find chicken wingettes and/or drumettes, that’s OK. The process of making a lollipop is slightly different but the end results are the same.
- Chicken wingettes with the tip intact
- Corn flour/cornstarch
- A few pinches of pepper (optional)
- Oil to deep fry
MARINADE
My Karaage Chicken recipe adds mirin to the marinade, but I omitted it in today’s recipe to give it a slightly salty flavour.
- Soy sauce
- Cooking sake
- Ginger juice squeezed from grated ginger
HOW TO MAKE KARAAGE CHICKEN LOLLIPOPS
My recipe card uses Method 1.
- Make chicken lollipops using either method 1 or method 2 described in the preceding section.
- Marinate chicken lollipops in a ziplock bag for 20 minutes.
- Pat-dry the marinated chicken and coat them with corn flour/cornstarch thoroughly.
- Deep-fry the chicken lollipops for about 6-7 minutes turning them over a couple of times.
- Transfer the chicken onto a rack to drain oil.
If you are using a bowl to marinate chicken lollipops, you will need to marinate a little bit longer. You should also turn the chicken over a couple of times so that the chicken is evenly coated in the marinade. I added a note in my recipe card.
I like my Karaage Chicken Lollipops with the skin side out (Method 1), because the outside of the chicken is crunchier than the lollipops with the fresh side out. Karaage Chicken Lollipops are perfect for nibbles and bento boxes too.
Hikari
光一郎