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%)