Kara-age: King of Chicken

There’s a tendency amongst non-Japanese – and one which is not discouraged by the Japanese – to be dazzled by Japanese cuisine – so delicate! so beautiful! so low in calories! – and it’s Amazing Life-Expectancy-Elongating Properties. It’s certainly true that Japanese food takes presentation to stunning levels, and that the use of umami-rich substances, like stock made with kombu seaweed and dried fish flakes, helps to keep calories low. But there is another side to Japanese cuisine, the less widely acknowledged comfort (=generally bad for you) cuisine, which is just as delicious, if not quite as visually impeccable. And one of the ultimate comfort foods is kara-age.

Anyway, kara-age is a term for a type of frying, where kara means “empty” and age means “fry” (Note: there is some controversy over the meaning of the kara, but for argument’s sake here we’re assuming to be correct the theory that it means “empty” and does so because the meat/fish is fried simply, with added extras). Although kara-age is often translated as fried chicken, strictly speaking anything can be fried kara-age stylee, so whatever is being fried comes before the kara-age: so since tori means chicken, fried chicken is tori no kara-age, and if alternatively you fancied some J-style fried blowfish, then you should order fugu no kara-age (what’s the no? I hear you say. It’s a possessive particle, language fans, but no need to worry about that today).

So. Now we know what it’s called. But what does it taste like? Limiting ourselves to discussion of tori no kara-age only, it’s…juicy. Delicious. No bones. A tinge of garlic. A whisper of ginger. A gentle tickle of soy sauce. The faintest hint of sake. Good kara-age is light and crispy on the outside, then all moist and juicy on the inside. You can squeeze lemon over it, or maybe dip it in mayonnaise. Maybe ketchup. Definitely not brown sauce.

If you want to try making some, you can check out the recipe here. But, to be honest, like all good comfort food, kara-age almost always tastes better when somebody makes it for you.