Taiwanese Salted Crispy Chicken 鹽酥雞

My dear friends came over for dinner last week and I made this popular Taiwanese dish from one the cookbooks they brought back for me from Taiwan. This is an extremely easy dish to prepare but you do have to have some coarse sweet potato flour (地瓜粉)* on hand. You may serve this as part of a Chinese meal or as a snack to go with drinks. I especially love the fried Thai basil and the salt and pepper that accompanied these crunchy morsels. There are more delicious dishes from those cookbooks that I plan to cook in the near future so stay tuned.

* Sweet potato flour is available from good Asian grocers.

recipe adapted from 正宗126道台灣小吃 (126 Authentic Taiwanese Snacks)
serves 4 as part of a Chinese meal or as a snack with drinks
you'll need;
500 g of chicken thighs, cut into 2 ~ 3 cm pieces
1tbs Chinese cooking wine
3 tbs of soy
2 tsp of castor sugar
1 tsp of five spice powder
1 spring onion (white part only), minced
2 pieces of ginger, minced
1 tsp of sesame oil
a bunch of Thai basil, picked
coarse sweet potato flour for coating
peanut oil for frying

for the salt and pepper dip;
1 tbs of salt
1 tbs of white pepper
mix salt and pepper well and set aside

Marinate chicken pieces for at least half an hour with Chinese cooking wine, soy, sugar, five spice powder, ginger, spring onion and sesame oil.

Coat marinated chicken with sweet potato flour.

Picked Thai basil leaves.

Fry chicken in hot oil in batches til light golden (50 ~ 70% cooked) and drain well.

Fry chicken a second time til golden and crispy. Drain well.

Fry Thai basil leaves 10 ~ 15 seconds and drain well on absorbent paper.

Scatter fried basil around the chicken pieces and serve immediately with the salt and pepper dip.