Har Cheong Gai (Prawn Paste Chicken)

Variations

• All in one go: some households put the flour and starch into the marinade on day one and leave it overnight like that. The batter goes thicker and so does the crust. Either way the marinade and the batter are never separate.
• Har cheong gai burger: boneless thigh fried the same way and put in a bun — Singapore's chicken sandwich.
• Changing the paste: a hard, dark block paste like Malay belacan is far stronger. If that is what you have, use 1 tablespoon loosened in 1 tablespoon of water. The flavour turns rougher.
• Other pieces: drumsticks and thighs work, but they are thicker, so take the first fry to about 12 minutes.

Tips

• The marinade and the coating are one bowl. Karaage is dredged in starch only, and because there is no batter to carry seasoning, "all of the flavour has to be inside the meat before it is coated." Har cheong gai goes the other way. The flour goes straight into the marinade bowl, so the marinade becomes the batter and the seasoning sits in the crust rather than in the meat. That is why each bite tastes of the outside first.
• The marinade is the coating, not only an ingredient of it. What marinades do gives a marinade one more job: being "an ingredient of the coating that comes next". The example there is buttermilk drizzled into flour a few drops at a time; here the whole marinade goes into the coat.
• The prawn paste is toasted in the oil. Laksa wraps its belacan in foil and dry-toasts it, and says why: "The harsh volatiles in fermented shrimp paste cook off." Har cheong gai has no toasting step. The paste is inside the crust and the oil takes that crust far above 100°C, so the frying is the toasting. A sharp smell off the raw batter is normal.
• Another dish uses the same kind of paste and never heats it. In bún đậu mắm tôm the mắm tôm is never cooked; it is worked with lime and sugar at the table. One takes the edge off with heat, the other holds it down with acid.
• It colours fast, which is why the first fry is 165°C. Prawn paste, oyster sauce, sugar and flour are all in the crust, so it does not stop at the pale gold karaage does. Straight into hot oil, the outside burns before the inside is cooked. Cook it through low, then get the colour and crunch from the second fry.
• The batter should be thick and sticky. This is a batter worn, not a flour dusted on, so a thin one runs off in the oil and a dry one sheds flour that burns. The twenty minutes are for the flour to take up the marinade and cling to the wings.