Karaage Chicken Lollipops are a fancy form of Karaage Chicken. They are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. As the name suggests, a chicken lollipop comes with a bone as a stick, attached to the meat that is shaped into a ball.
My Karaage Chicken Lollipops are made with chicken wingettes by pushing the meat and skin down to the end of the bone. By removing one bone (wingettes have two thin bones), it becomes a lollipop-like shape.
In Japan, it is not called chicken lollipop, but called tulip chicken (チューリップチキン) because it resembles a tulip.
Different ways of making chicken lollipops
Most chicken lollipop recipes use chicken wings. I used only the wingettes (middle part of the chicken wing) to make chicken lollipops, but you can also make them with drumettes.
Some recipes even use a drumstick, although it will be a very large lollipop.
There are two ways of making a lollipop shape using a winglette or a drumette.
Method 1: Push the flesh to the wider end of the bone (away from the tip) by sliding it along the bone to the end. By pushing the flesh firmly, it forms a round shape like a lollipop with a bone as a stick. The wingette has two bones inside, so remove the thinner bone to make it look like a lollipop.
Method 2: Push the flesh down to the wider end of the bone (away from the tip) by sliding it along the bone, then flip the flesh over to the other end of the bone, turning the flesh inside out. This will make a larger lollipop than the lollipop made in Method 1. See the photo below.
Method 1 makes a compact lollipop that looks like a tulip before opening petals. Method 2 makes a larger lollipop that resembles a tulip with opened petals. I personally think that Method 1 is suited to the wingette and Method 2 is suited to the drumette.
If you are not fussed about the appearance, you can leave the two bones intact when making lollipops with wingettes like the photo below.
What’s in My Karaage Chicken Lollipops
The ingredients are very similar to that of Karaage Chicken except that each piece of chicken comes with a bone. My recipe uses Method 1 to make chicken lollipops.
I used wingettes with the tip intact because it is easier to make a lollipop this way than making it without the tip.
These days supermarkets sell chicken wings without tips (sold as V-wing) or a mixture of wingettes and drumettes (sold as chicken nibbles) and it’s not easy to find chicken wings with the three portions intact. I sometimes have to buy chicken wings with all three portions intact at the chicken shop instead of the supermarket.
If you can only find chicken wingettes and/or drumettes, that’s OK. The process of making a lollipop is slightly different but the end results are the same.
- Chicken wingettes with the tip intact
- Corn flour/cornstarch
- A few pinches of pepper (optional)
- Oil to deep fry
Marinade
My Karaage Chicken recipe adds mirin to the marinade, but I omitted it in today’s recipe to give it a slightly salty flavour.
- Soy sauce
- Cooking sake
- Ginger juice squeezed from grated ginger
How to Make Karaage Chicken Lollipops
My recipe card uses Method 1. See the video.
- Make chicken lollipops using either method 1 or method 2 described in the preceding section.
- Marinate chicken lollipops in a ziplock bag for 20 minutes.
- Pat-dry the marinated chicken and coat them with corn flour/cornstarch thoroughly.
- Deep-fry the chicken lollipops for about 6-7 minutes turning them over a couple of times.
- Transfer the chicken onto a rack to drain oil.
If you are using a bowl to marinate chicken lollipops, you will need to marinate a little bit longer. You should also turn the chicken over a couple of times so that the chicken is evenly coated in the marinade. I added a note in my recipe card.
I like my Karaage Chicken Lollipops with the skin side out (Method 1), because the outside of the chicken is crunchier than the lollipops with the fresh side out. Karaage Chicken Lollipops are perfect for nibbles and bento boxes too.
Yumiko
Watch How To Make It
Karaage Chicken Lollipops are a fancy form of Karaage Chicken. They are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. They are great for nibbles and perfect for bento boxes.
As the name suggests, chicken lollipops come with a bone as a stick, attached to the meat that is shaped into a ball.
Cook Time assumes you cook chicken lollipops in 2 batches.
Watch the video.
Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.
- 12 chicken wingettes with the tip intact (note 1)
- 3-4 tbsp corn flour/cornstarch
- Oil to deep-fry
- A few pinches of pepper (optional)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- ½ tbsp cooking sake
- 1 tsp ginger juice (squeeze juice out of grated ginger)
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Place a chicken wingette on a cutting board with the inner side facing up.
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Cut the inner side of the skin and the flesh at about 5mm/3⁄16" from the joint between the wingette and the tip, away from the tip.
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Hold the wingette and the tip with both hands and break the wing where the flesh was cut. Reveal two bones by pulling the wing tip down.
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Place the wingette upright, the tip side up, and hold the two revealed bones at the top tightly with right and left fingers (thumb, index finger, and middle finger).
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Slide the fingers down along the bones, detaching the flesh off the bones and pushing the meat downwards until you cannot slide it down any more. You should see a small ball of flesh at the bottom.
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Hold the small ball of flesh on one hand, with the tip still intact, and twist/rotate the thinner bone with the other hand to detach it from the joint (note 3).
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Cut the tip of the wing off and tidy up the shape of the flesh up to look like a lollipop.
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Repeat the process for the rest of the wingettes.
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Put the chicken pieces and the Marinade ingredients in a plastic bag (note 4) and massage well ensuring that the chicken pieces are thoroughly coated in the marinade.
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Marinate for 20 minutes, during which turn the bag over and massage a couple of times.
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Remove the chicken from the bag and remove excess marinade from the surface of the chicken using kitchen paper.
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Coat the chicken pieces in corn flour/cornstarch. Ensure that the meat is thoroughly covered in the corn flour, including the cavity.
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Put oil in a frying pan to 1cm deep and heat it to 180°C/356°F.
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Gently place the chicken pieces in the oil. If your frying pan is not large, you need to fry them in batches. I fried the chicken in 2 batches.
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Fry for 2½ - 3 minutes (note 5), then turn them over and fry for another 2½ - 3 minutes (note 5).
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Turn them over for the last time and fry for 15-30 seconds (note 5).
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Transfer the Karaage Chicken Lollipops onto a tray with a rack or lined with kitchen paper to drain oil. Sprinkle pepper over the chicken if you are using it.
1. My chicken wings without drumette weighed 670g/1.5lb in total. After making lollipops for the wings, it weighed 560g/1.2lb. Assuming that the yield percentage of the wingette is 65%, it contains 364g/0.8lb of edible portion.
I bought chicken wings and cut the drumette off each wing so that I can get wingettes with the tip intact. I used the drumette in other recipes, such as Simmered Winter Melon with Chicken Drumette and Simmered Chicken Drumette in Sweet and Sour Sauce.
It is easier to make a lollipop if the tip of the wing is intact, but even if your chicken wingettes do not come with a tip, you can still make chicken lollipops. See note 2.
You can make chicken lollipops using drumettes as well. But I think it is better to flip the flesh to make the lollipop shape with a drumette (please read my post about two different methods of making a chicken lollipop).
2. If you are using a wingette without the tip, you can use a knife or scissors to cut the connecting tissue at the tip-end of the wingettes as a starting point to slide the flesh down along the bones. The same method can be applied when using drumettes.
3. It looks better to have a single bone sticking out of the ball of chicken, but if you can’t be bothered, you don’t need to remove the thin bones. You will then have a lollipop with two sticks. See the sample photo of Karaage Chicken Lollipops with two bones in the post.
4. Instead of using a plastic bag, you can use a bowl to marinate the chicken. But you need to toss the chicken in the marinade often so that the chicken pieces are thoroughly coated in the marinade. The duration to marinade chicken pieces in a bowl should be about 30 minutes.
5. The deep-frying duration varies depending on the size of your lollipop. I cooked it for about 1 minutes and 45 seconds on each side.
6. Nutrition per piece. It assumes that 50% of the marinade is absorbed into the chicken and the oil absorption rate is 5%.
serving: 35g calories: 81kcal fat: 6g (8%) saturated fat: 1.3g (7%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 1.2g monounsaturated fat: 3g cholesterol: 29mg (10%) sodium: 119mg (5%) carbohydrates: 1.5g (1%) dietary fibre: 0.2g (1%) sugar: 0g protein: 5.3g vitamin D: 0mcg (0%) calcium: 3mg (0%) iron: 0.2mg (1%) potassium: 70.4mg (1%)
Meal Ideas
A typical Japanese meal consists of a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a soup and rice. I try to come up with a combination of dishes with a variety of flavours, colours, textures and make-ahead dishes.
I picked Daikon Fukumeni as one of the side dishes because the light flavour of the daikon goes well with the flavoursome Karaage Chicken Lollipops. I also wanted to add something acidic to balance the flavour. I picked a cucumber salad with crab meat for that. It also adds a bright red colour to the meal. But you can have cucumber and wakame seaweed salad as an alternative.
I think a clear soup will go well with the deep-fried main dish, but a simple miso soup is also good.
- Main: Karaage Chicken Lollipops – today’s recipe.
- Side dish 1: Simmered Daikon (Daikon Fukumeni) – make ahead.
- Side dish 2: Crab and Cucumber Salad with Sweet Vinegar Dressing (Amazu) – or Cucumber and Seaweed Sunomono (Vinegar Dressing).
- Soup: Roasted Seaweed Soup (Nori Sui) – or a simple miso soup from Miso Soup Recipes or Miso Soup Ingredient Combinations.
- Rice: Cooked Rice.
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