CHICKEN NANBAN | Japanese No.1 Fried Chicken

What is Chicken Namban?

Chicken Nanban is one of a kind of Fried-chicken dish, dipped in sweet and sour sauce and topped with tar-tar sauce.

You might be familiar with the deep-fried Karaage-Chicken; this is an upgraded version of Miyazaki prefecture in Kyushu, Japan.

They combine the typical Japanese seasonings and Western sauce and make it into one of the most popular dishes all over Japan.

Unlike the other Japanese dishes, it’s so rich and heavy; this is the dish you go for when you are very hungry.

I fell in love with Chicken Nanban Bento from Hot-Motto, the Japanese leading Bento take-out shop.

I remember eating Chicken Namban Bento after training (I was a basketball player,) when I was a young girl at junior high.

It energizes your body and you are going to love it too!

Chicken Nanban

Fried chicken soaked in sweet and sour sauce, topped with tar-tar sauce

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Japanese

Servings 2 servings

Equipment

• frying pan

Ingredients

  

• 1 boneless skin-on chichen thigh about 400g
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 tbsp Tempura flour

sweet and sour sauce

• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Mirin

tar-tar sauce

• 1 hard-boiled egg
• 1 tbsp minced onion
• 1 tbsp minced cucumber pickles
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• salt and pepper to taste
• milk to adjust the consistency

Instructions

 

chicken preparation

• Remove excess skin and fat from the chicken.

  Make a shallow cut on the surface to make it easy to bite through.

  Cut open the thick part to make it even thickness.
• Prick all over the surface on the skin side to make it soft, and the seasonings penetrate.

  Sprinkle salt and rub to season well.
• Dust chicken with about half a tablespoon of Tempura flour.

  ※The crust will fall off if you don't dust before putting it in the batter.

  Mix about 1 1/2 tablespoons of water to the rest of the Tempura flour to make a smooth batter.

  If you don't have Tempura flour:

  1/2 egg, 200ml icy-water, 160g all-purpose flour
• Put your oil for frying in the frying pan one centimeter from the bottom.

  Turn the heat to medium until it becomes 160℃.

  Start cooking the skin side down.
• It takes time to cook through the chicken, so I always put the lid on and cook on medium-low heat for five minutes.

  Carefully slide off the lid and wipe off the steam on the inside of the lid.

  Be sure not to drop the water into the oil.

  The oil will splash all over, and you don't want that.

  Flip it over and put the lid on again and cook another 3 to 4 minutes.
• take out onto the wire rack and drip off any excess oil.

Sweet and sour sauce

• Put all the ingredients in a frying pan and bring it to a boil.

  Reduce a little.
• put your cooked chicken into that pan, soak in the sauce, and cook up quickly.

  Take the chicken out of the pan, pour the sweet-and-sour sauce all over the surface, and leave it until we prepare the tar-tar source.

tar-tar sauce

• I don't like chopping the hard-boiled egg on a cutting board, and I always do it with an egg cutter.

  Cut it through, change the direction, and cut it through again, and you can have your hard-boiled egg into small dice.
• Mix all the ingredients together.

Assemble

• Cut chicken into strips to easy to eat with chopsticks.

  Pour over a bit of bit more sweet-and-sour sauce.

  And top with tartar sauce.

  For the finishing touch, sprinkle chopped scallions and lemon wedges.

Keyword chicken, chicken nanban, chicken recipe, japanese recipe, sweet and sour sauce, tar-tar sauce