SesameChickenMan
Assistant Cook
Hello friends—
I am a little more than a year into a lifelong quest to make the world's best sesame chicken and I am here to ask for your help. While I've gotten very good at the sesame chicken sauce, I always have trouble with deep frying the chicken such that it is crispy all over and remains crispy after being covered in the sauce, without going overboard. This may be a matter of my needing more practice (because once or twice I have pulled it off), but since the same symptoms seem to recur despite my variations I am wondering if there is something very obvious I am doing wrong.
My typical technique is to batter 1in chicken pieces in a cup of cold water, a cup of flour, baking powder, salt, and a dash of booze (which I read online somewhere helps prevent gluten formation, and that this is good), and immediately throw them in the deep fryer (with tongs) at 375F, for anywhere from 2 to 10 mins depending on how desperate I am to get them crispy. The recurring problem is that whether they are in for a long or short time, the batter around the chicken doesn't end up crispy, while the bits not directly attached to chicken do get crispy.
In an effort to resolve this problem, I have experimented extensively. I've used beer instead of water, which certainly gets them crispy, but not in the way I'm looking for (this is a sesame chicken, not fish and chips, and the beer batter ends up getting too big and interfering with the taste of the chicken and the sauce). Half beer, half water is better, but still has the problem of being a different kind of crispiness. I've also used seltzer water, which I will admit doesn't seem to have too much effect, and my understanding is that there is no reason it should have any effect different than beer does (because the relevant variable in either case is the carbonation). I've tried corn starch instead of flour, eggs instead of water (or both), and I've tried double frying them (though perhaps not with the precision required—it's either seemed to have no effect or made them unpleasantly crunchy).
As I said, it's possible that I'm just not executing well enough or consistently. But this has happened often enough that it is becoming frustrating, and I haven't been able to find any simple fixes online. So if anyone has any thoughts or tips about what I am doing wrong, they would be much appreciated. Alternatively, if anyone has a deep fry batter recipe that they've found works very well in this context (most of the batters I find online are for larger pieces of chicken not intended to be used with sauce or are beer batters).
Thank you, and your contribution to the quest is greatly appreciated.
I am a little more than a year into a lifelong quest to make the world's best sesame chicken and I am here to ask for your help. While I've gotten very good at the sesame chicken sauce, I always have trouble with deep frying the chicken such that it is crispy all over and remains crispy after being covered in the sauce, without going overboard. This may be a matter of my needing more practice (because once or twice I have pulled it off), but since the same symptoms seem to recur despite my variations I am wondering if there is something very obvious I am doing wrong.
My typical technique is to batter 1in chicken pieces in a cup of cold water, a cup of flour, baking powder, salt, and a dash of booze (which I read online somewhere helps prevent gluten formation, and that this is good), and immediately throw them in the deep fryer (with tongs) at 375F, for anywhere from 2 to 10 mins depending on how desperate I am to get them crispy. The recurring problem is that whether they are in for a long or short time, the batter around the chicken doesn't end up crispy, while the bits not directly attached to chicken do get crispy.
In an effort to resolve this problem, I have experimented extensively. I've used beer instead of water, which certainly gets them crispy, but not in the way I'm looking for (this is a sesame chicken, not fish and chips, and the beer batter ends up getting too big and interfering with the taste of the chicken and the sauce). Half beer, half water is better, but still has the problem of being a different kind of crispiness. I've also used seltzer water, which I will admit doesn't seem to have too much effect, and my understanding is that there is no reason it should have any effect different than beer does (because the relevant variable in either case is the carbonation). I've tried corn starch instead of flour, eggs instead of water (or both), and I've tried double frying them (though perhaps not with the precision required—it's either seemed to have no effect or made them unpleasantly crunchy).
As I said, it's possible that I'm just not executing well enough or consistently. But this has happened often enough that it is becoming frustrating, and I haven't been able to find any simple fixes online. So if anyone has any thoughts or tips about what I am doing wrong, they would be much appreciated. Alternatively, if anyone has a deep fry batter recipe that they've found works very well in this context (most of the batters I find online are for larger pieces of chicken not intended to be used with sauce or are beer batters).
Thank you, and your contribution to the quest is greatly appreciated.
