Taiwanese popcorn chicken

Taiwanese popcorn chicken is a snack of small fried chicken pieces seasoned with pepper and served with fried basil. Clarissa Wei’s recipe uses boneless thigh meat marinated with soy sauce, rice wine, garlic, sugar, white pepper and five-spice powder. Flour and baking powder are mixed into the chicken before the pieces are coated with coarse sweet-potato starch.^[1]

The coated chicken is fried twice, with a pause between the two stages, to develop a crisp crust. Basil leaves are fried separately. The chicken and basil are then tossed with a mixture of chilli powder, ground white pepper and salt. This preparation is published from Wei’s own cookbook, Made in Taiwan, and describes the dish as part of Taiwan’s night-market food culture.^[1]