Here is a very popular Taiwanese Street Food – Taiwanese salty crispy chicken 鹹酥雞. Lots of people buy this at the night markets or at the stalls on the way home after work. If you like fried chicken, and who doesn’t, you will like this dish! We served ours simply with some boiled rice and some stir fried green vegetables on the side. Alternatively you can have it with all sorts of combinations; as a starter/snack on its own, with coleslaw and french fries is one of our favourites too. Have a beer with it too!
Taiwanese salty crispy chicken, tasty street food
The ingredients (for 2 to 3 people) 食材;
ingredients
- half a kilo of chicken pieces
- 1 tbsp rice wine
- 1.5 tbsp sugar
- 1 garlic clove chopped finely
- half a tsp five spice
- half a tsp white pepper
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 egg yolk
- handful of basil leaves
- sweet potato flour, coarse ground if possible
- Taiwanese salt ‘n’ pepper powder
The method 作法;
- chop the chicken into small pieces, boneless if you like, depends on your preference
- in the bowl with the chicken add your soy sauce, rice wine and garlic, five spaice and white pepper
- mix it all together for a few minutes then put it in the fridge for 30 mins to marinade
- add your egg yolk to the chicken mixture, mix it up
- coat the chicken pieces in the sweet potato flour, one by one and put them on a plate
- wait until the flour coated pieces get wet again before frying
- get your oil hot and at least 1″ deep. We used just a small pan and fried the chicken in 2 batches
- put the chicken in piece by piece, don’t stir it for a while, you don’t want the crispy coating to come off
- when golden brown take the chicken pieces out and heat the oil to very hot again; re introduce the chicken to the oil for a ocuple of minutes.
- repeat step 9. one more time and add your basil leaves. this will be nice and crispy.
- a couple of minutes later it’s ready to servce and you should sprinkle the Taiwanese salt n papper poweder over the chicken pieces and toss the whole lot to make sure it’s all got seasoning on
- now serve it on its own or with some side dishes… yummy!
Joanne has recorded a how to make Taiwanese salty crispy chicken 鹹酥雞 street food cooking video so you can see and follow the timings, chopping shapes and sizes, and method step by step, as she prepares this delicious traditional Taiwanese street food.
Taiwanese salty crispy chicken 鹹酥雞 night market Taiwan food, cooking video
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32 comments
愛吃 says:
Apr 14, 2012
Nice! It’s one of my favorite snacks! If I can’t get sweet potato flour, can I use regular flour? What will be the differrence?
Also, it looks like the video should be re-edited, there’s just a black screen after the end of the recipe.
Thanks!
jj.lymm says:
Apr 14, 2012
Thank you for the comment. If you can’t find sweet potato flour then use breadcrmbs, or mix plain flour and rice flour! good luck jj
Kong says:
Feb 26, 2013
Hi , I can’t find sweet potato starch . Do you know what kind powder mix together can be same as sweet potato starch ?
jj.lymm says:
Feb 26, 2013
Hi Kong, the next best thing is breadcrumbs… Try that 🙂
Richard says:
May 6, 2012
That looks like ordinary European basil to me? This should be Thai basil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_basil) which you can usually find at Thai shops in major UK towns and cities. Otherwise, nice looking recipe!
Richard says:
Feb 18, 2013
Just to say that much to my delight the UK supermarket Asda now stocks Thai basil! It’s 65p a packet in the fresh herb section. Now I’ll be making Salt & Pepper Chicken and Three Cup Chicken much more often!
jj.lymm says:
Feb 19, 2013
Also it’s very easy to grow your own in summer!
Chris Banducci says:
May 23, 2012
This is one of our favorite night market foods. We’ve been looking for a good recipe, forever. Thanks for this one.
duntrytohack says:
Jun 2, 2012
Hi Taiwan Duck! Maybe you can include Chinese instructions too? For fellow Chinese.
Julie says:
Jun 21, 2012
Where can you buy Taiwanese salt and pepper? Is there an online store that sells this? what brand would you recommend?
mark says:
Jun 21, 2012
Hi Julie, look for any brand “made in Taiwan” for the authentic taste! Where to get it depends where you live…
Lizzie says:
Jul 7, 2012
Hi the chicken look awesone. But I can not find the taiwan salt and pepper powder. Do you have the recipe? Thnks.
jj.lymm says:
Jul 7, 2012
Hi Lizzie
Here is how to maike Taiwanese salt & pepper powder;
1 tbsp salt
half tbsp white pepper
half tbsp black pepper
quarter tbsp of Chinese 5 spice
half a tsp of 高纖味精 natural MSG substitute (or chicken stock powder)
grind all that together!
cristan says:
Jul 30, 2012
can you show how to make chinese pork bun, it’s a steamed bun with a pork filling and a ground peanut.
jj.lymm says:
Jul 30, 2012
Hi Cristan, I made steamed pork buns here. I think you can just add ground peanuts. Or perhaps you mean this braised pork recipe.
cristan says:
Jul 31, 2012
thank you very much for posting all of these recipes. i truly see these foods here in taiwan and so very happy that you are sharing how to prepare all of these.i’m gonna surely cook them one at a time. can’t wait for more recipes.
bianca says:
Aug 5, 2012
if i want to make the seasoning more spicy is there anything i could add to the taiwanese salt and pepper powder?
jj.lymm says:
Aug 5, 2012
Hi Bianca, white pepper has heat, so you can add more of that, or perhaps a little cayenne which gives heat without adding very much flavour?
Janice says:
Aug 14, 2012
Hi this is one of my favorite Taiwan snacks, can you write down the chinese characters for the special salt and pepper mixture so I can ask someone to buy for me in Taiwan? Is it readily available in their grocery store? Thank you.
jj.lymm says:
Aug 14, 2012
你好:我用的是小磨訪的胡椒鹽!!
Sq says:
Oct 14, 2012
Hello, i really love your recipes! I wanted to try this, but I realised you didn’t mention when do I put in the Sugar? I suppose it’s supposed to be put into with the marinade ingredients together?
jj.lymm says:
Oct 14, 2012
Yes, that’s right put it in the marinade. Thank you 🙂
Adi says:
Nov 10, 2012
It seems you’re familiar with taiwanese food. I have a question here. When you go to shilin night market, you see the famous xxl chicken.
Do you know what kind of flour they are using? In which, when they fry the chicken, the flour coating create a unique buble texture, golden color, and dont get black easily.
jj.lymm says:
Nov 10, 2012
It’s usually sweet potato flour. I made a version of this street food here; http://taiwanduck.com/how-to-cook-fried-chicken-steak-taiwanese-style/
bianca says:
Dec 31, 2012
we saw a bottle labelled as 炸盐酥鸡粉 5 spice powder on the website http://rasamalaysia.com/salt-and-pepper-chicken-recipe/?pid=2684#image-4728….
would like to know if is this the same as the special salt n pepper powder that u used? and does it serve as a 5 spice powder as well?
jj.lymm says:
Jan 1, 2013
It’s different brand but it looks like the right thing to use, good luck and happy new year!
Dom says:
Jun 16, 2013
Wow, this was yummy. We had this with rice, topped with furikake, a salad and some kewpie for dipping the crispy pieces of chicken. Lucky for me I live in Australia, so all the ingrediants were easy to find. Thank you Joanne, cant wait to make the Braised pork on rice tomorrow 😉
jj.lymm says:
Jun 16, 2013
Hi Dom, that sounds good, I’m hungry after reading that… Please join the TaiwanDuck Facebook!
Hana says:
May 7, 2014
What is the best kind of chicken to use? I think chicken breast can be too dry, right? Does boneless skinless thighs yield the best texture? Thanks.
jj.lymm says:
May 9, 2014
Traditional Taiwanese way does use chicken pieces containing bones. Yes, I think chicken thighs would stay juicy when cooked, better than breast. Good luck Hana!
Domenic says:
Aug 23, 2015
Hello! I just finished making this recipe for my wife and myself. We lived in Taichung for 4 years, but are now in the U.S. This instantly brought us back to Taiwan! So Delicious and very authentic. Thank you so so much.
mark says:
Aug 23, 2015
Good to hear it Domenic, that’s exactly why Taiwan Duck is here!