← Nouns Cooking · Korean

Ingredients

• 500 g boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 tsp Soy sauce
• 1 tsp Mirin
• Salt
• ½ egg white
• 90 g potato starch or cornflour
• 1 l oil, for deep-frying
• 2 tbsp oil or chilli oil
• 6 cloves Garlic, chopped
• 3 cm piece Ginger, finely chopped
• 4 Dried chillies, snipped in half
• 2 Spring onion, chopped, whites and greens apart
• ½ red pepper, diced
• 1 jalapeño or other green chilli, diced
• 1 tbsp Soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp Mirin
• 1½ tbsp Sugar
• 3 tbsp Rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp Water
• ¼ tsp White pepper
• 1 tsp Toasted sesame oil

Method

1. Season the chicken with the soy sauce, mirin and a pinch of salt. Mix in the egg white, then the starch, to make a shaggy coating; add a teaspoon of water if it looks dusty.
2. Heat the frying oil to 170°C (340°F) and fry the chicken in batches for 5–6 min, until light golden. Drain, then fry again at 180°C (355°F) for 2–3 min, until really crunchy and cooked through to 75°C (165°F).
3. Stir the sauce ingredients together in a bowl.
4. Heat the 2 tbsp oil in a wok over medium heat and fry the garlic, ginger, dried chillies and spring onion whites for 1 minute, until fragrant but not browned. Add the peppers and toss for 30 seconds.
5. Pour in the sauce and let it bubble for 1 minute. Tip in the chicken and toss over high heat for 30–60 seconds, until the sauce is almost all absorbed. Finish with the sesame oil and spring onion greens.

Tips

• Unlike sweet-and-sour, kkanpunggi should look almost dry: the sauce soaks into the crust instead of pooling.
• Swap the chicken for large prawns to make kkanpung-saeu.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Aaron and Claire Seonkyoung Longest FutureDish