Gochujang chicken with a crust that shatters

Name: Gochujang chicken with a crust that shatters
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Korean
Ingredients: 10 oz chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces; ¼ cup cornstarch; 1 cup jasmine rice; 1 Persian cucumber, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced; 2 carrots, coarsely grated; 2 scallions, thinly sliced, whites and greens kept apart; ⅓ cup kimchi, roughly chopped; 1 tbsp rice vinegar; 2 tbsp soy glaze; 2 tsp gochujang; 1 tsp honey; 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds; neutral oil for frying, salt, pepper

Cornstarch, not flour, and a pan rather than a pot of oil. The sauce goes on after, never before.

At a Glance

Time

30 min

Adjust servings

Story

Cornstarch has no gluten in it, so it cannot form the soft chewy net that flour makes. It fries into something closer to glass, which is why Korean fried chicken stays crisp under a wet sauce when everything else has gone soggy by the time it reaches the table. Two rules follow from that. The chicken has to be dry before the cornstarch touches it, and the sauce has to go on at the very last moment, off the heat, in a bowl.

Ingredients

10 oz chicken breastcut into bite-size pieces
¼ cup cornstarch
1 cup jasmine rice
1 Persian cucumberhalved lengthwise and thinly sliced
2 carrotscoarsely grated
2 scallionsthinly sliced, whites and greens kept apart
⅓ cup kimchiroughly chopped
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy glaze
2 tsp gochujang
1 tsp honey
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
neutral oil for fryingsalt, pepper

Method

The pieces are small on purpose. Bite-size means every one of them is mostly crust, which is the point, and it means the whole thing fries in six minutes in a thin layer of oil instead of a pot you then have to deal with.

Rice on first. Rinse it until the water runs clear, then cook it however you normally do.
Cucumber, carrot, scallion whites and kimchi in a bowl with the vinegar, salt and pepper. Leave it to slump for at least 10 minutes. This is the sharp cold thing that makes the rest of the plate work.
Whisk the soy glaze, gochujang and honey in a bowl big enough to hold all the chicken later.
Pat the chicken properly dry, season, then toss it in the cornstarch until every piece is dusty and pale. Shake off what does not cling.
Thin layer of neutral oil over medium-high. When a pinch of cornstarch fizzes on contact, the chicken goes in one layer. 3 to 4 minutes without touching it, then another 3 to 4 with the occasional turn, until it is deep brown and cooked through.
Straight from the pan into the bowl of sauce, and toss. Serve on the rice with the pickled vegetables, their liquid included, then the scallion greens and the sesame seeds.

Do not sauce it early and do not cover it. Both do the same thing to that crust and neither is recoverable.

On the pass